“Haah, haah…”
Every time he exhaled, white mist scattered into the air.
He stood in the white horizon of the high altitudes of the Night Sky Mountains, a place known as the White Night Canyon.
Shlick!
After steadying his breathing, he pulled out the sword he had driven into the ground. It was not the Kingslayer, which was made of Dark Mithril. It was a bone sword he had projected from within his body using the Stance of the Thorns.
Pinned beneath the vertical blade was a Skeleton Knight clad in rusted armor, twisted like a snake.
Rip!
After delivering the final blow, he readjusted his grip on both the Kingslayer and the bone blade in a dual-wielding style and looked up.
At Sien’s feet lay the countless remains of imperial knights, including the undead he had just finished off.
However, none of them could compare to the entity currently standing before Sien’s eyes.
A Death Knight.
The gatekeeper he had to pass to reach the Temple of the Moon.
The Death Knight blocking his path was clad in silver armor and brandished a sword that had not rusted a bit despite the passage of time.
“Mithril material…”
Mithril was called the most expensive metal on the continent. Its properties were essentially the same as the Dark Mithril Sien held in his hand.
A brilliant flash of light ran along the silver blade and armor. This was an opponent of a completely different caliber than the rabble Sien had faced before.
Even the color of its light was so brilliant and dazzling that it did not pale in comparison to the Mithril in its hand.
It didn’t matter if its entire body was rotting away or if it reeked of the foul stench of a decaying corpse.
That was, without a doubt, Aura.
The will of the ‘Hymn of Humanity,’ an power only humans can use to transcend their own flesh, blood, and bone.
Furthermore, it was the extremely refined Aura of a powerhouse who had reached the level of a Master or higher.
Not only was it coating the sword, but it also enveloped the rotting body and the brilliantly shining full-plate armor.
There weren’t many knights capable of arming themselves entirely in Mithril armor. It wasn’t hard to imagine how noble and prestigious a knight he must have been during his life.
But he was that no longer.
He was now a crystallization of obsession that had forgotten even what he was fighting for, destined to hold his sword until the end of the world.
“Whew.”
Sien adjusted his stance along with a deep breath.
He wasn’t without injuries. He had reached the point where he had to use the Stance of the Thorns to project bones from his own body. Moreover, Sien’s physical body was exhausted to the limit from the endless life-and-death struggles he had faced while climbing the Night Sky Mountains for days and nights.
“It’s hard.”
It was exhausting.
“I feel like I’m really going to die from exhaustion.”
He just wanted to throw everything away, sit down, and rest. But he couldn’t do that.
Because there was something far more precious and valuable than just quitting and resting.
That was why he could never stop.
Even if that something was an obsession no different from the undead before him.
Crackle!
Sien flicked his fingers, which were covered by black leather gloves.
A 1st-circle magic, the incantation for Lightning Bolt.
It wasn’t an ordinary Lightning Bolt.
From the moment the first bolt was fired, a second and third bolt were already striking down from Sien’s fingertips. There wasn’t a single moment of delay.
It was the rapid-fire incantation of mages known as the Duelist’s Stance.
However, to Sien, it was simply the ‘Faceless Stance.’
Furthermore, the Lightning Gloves supplemented the power that usually had to be sacrificed for the sake of rapid firing, increasing the destructive force.
Sien’s Lightning Bolt struck like a sharpshooter, snaking precisely into the gaps of the Death Knight’s armor—into the thread-thin joints.
—However, the Death Knight paid it no mind and rushed toward Sien’s nose in an instant.
To one already dead, the pain of electrocution felt through the gaps in armor was meaningless.
Sien hadn’t used the magic with high expectations in the first place. He was merely trying to induce the opponent’s movement and test them.
Clang!
The Mithril sword, coated in pure white Aura, swung out.
“It’s not the Stance of the Double-Headed Eagle.”
However, the way it swung the sword was quite different. It wasn’t that the style had changed heterogeneously because it had become undead, but rather as if it had been practicing a completely different sword style from the beginning.
It wasn’t surprising. The Stance of the Double-Headed Eagle was a powerful and proven stance, one that only the elite knights of the Empire could learn.
Nevertheless, it could not overcome the inherent limitation of being a ‘mass-produced sword style’ taught to an unspecified majority.
But the sword style the Death Knight before him was displaying was different.
It was a ‘Unique Sword Style,’ taught only to a specific few from the start, much like those of the Nightwalker Clan or the house of the Duke of Grandel—or perhaps a specific swordsmanship guild rather than a noble family.
“There is too little information to grasp the stance.”
Sword stances do not follow a one-sided food chain where a stronger stance simply beats a weaker one. Rather, it is closer to a compatibility where each eats the other’s tail.
Softness consumes heaviness, and speed consumes softness.
And finally, what consumes speed is the initial ‘heaviness’ that was consumed by softness.
Moreover, there was no way there were only three attributes—softness, heaviness, and speed—for swords in this world.
Fast, illusory, strong, explosive, heavy, absorbing, swirling, and centered—the number of attributes that form the foundation of swords and stances is uncountable.
Therefore, it is important to quickly identify the attributes of the opponent’s stance and respond accordingly.
Just as Sien had used the clan’s 2nd style, the ‘Shepherd Boy’s Stance,’ against the Orc warrior Bjorn in the past.
“It’s too much to handle with just the Faceless Stance.”
However, it was out of the question to borrow the power of a divine artifact like the Spear of Destiny while undergoing the Rite of Confirmation.
Up to this point, he had used the Faceless Stance to minimize the loss of physical strength, but the situation was different now. At least in front of the powerful enemy before his eyes.
Sien, having widened the distance again, firmed his stance.
“Stance of the Ghost.”
Sien recited the name of the sword style he sought to master—the one he believed without a doubt he had already reached the pinnacle of.
A domain of supernatural power that transcends even the shackles of humanity: the nine sword styles of the Nightwalker Clan.
This world consists of dreams, illusions, bubbles, shadows, dew, and lightning.
Recalling the sword secret of the 1st style, which stands at the apex of those nine styles—he exhaled deeply.
No white mist came out.
Neither his breathing nor the sound of his breath leaked out.
[The tale of Dreams and Dreams].
Twitch.
The sword of the Death Knight, which had been swinging against Sien until a moment ago, finally showed agitation.
But the agitation did not last long. In the first place, Sien’s opponent was not even a living human.
Once again, the Death Knight, enveloped in pure white Mithril, rushed forward.
And lightning struck down faster than that.
It wasn’t a Lightning Bolt, but Sien, who had kicked off the ground with speed as fast as a lightning strike, swinging the Kingslayer.
Slash!
When Sien’s attack swung through, the Death Knight felt nothing.
Belatedly realizing Sien’s blow, the Death Knight swung its sword.
Then, Sien’s shadow, which had been there just a moment ago, vanished like a bubble.
Thud.
The Death Knight’s sword stopped at the same time.
Its movements ceased right there.
It wasn’t to regain its stance, nor was it because it had received a fatal wound that prevented it from moving.
It simply stopped.
As if there was no longer any life there to be harmed.
There was only a black and dark shadow.
The will of the Hymn of Humanity, an power only humans can use to transcend their own flesh, blood, and bone.
This was the destination of that will.
Transcending flesh, blood, and bone—the human will that paradoxically transcends even the shackles of humanity.
No human form remained of Sien anymore.
The ‘Ghost,’ covered in pitch-black Aura, moved its steps quietly.
Even with Sien right in front of it, the Death Knight did not move an inch. It no longer mattered what stance it had used during its life. Even if a sword was pointed at it right before its eyes, nothing would change.
Whao!
In that state, the Ghost’s sword swung.
Until the very end, no resistance occurred.
***
At that time, at the Temple of the Moon at the peak of the Night Sky Mountains.
A group of people wearing various masks over pitch-black robes was there.
They were the brothers and sisters of the Nightwalker Clan.
Each and every one of them was at least a Master or a High Master, powerhouses qualified to preside over the Rite of Confirmation.
The rite had already begun.
From the moment Sien reached the White Night Canyon and approached the summit, a remote viewing spell capable of monitoring the entire mountain range had been reflecting Sien’s every move.
The Child of the Night, possessed of such unprecedented talent that he was called the second coming of the progenitor, Kasan.
The godson whom the Mother of Assassins, Laila Nightwalker, had personally chosen as the heir to the clan.
The talent shown by that child was no longer in a form that could even be called talent.
“It’s surprising. To think he has already mastered the Shadow of the Ghost”
“To think he could hide his own existence even from a Death Knight.”
“As expected of the clan leader’s godson.”
“And he is also a brother to us all.”
A sister of the clan wearing a flashy peacock mask spoke in surprise, and the other brothers and sisters followed suit.
“Ah! Look at that!”
Just then, a girl dressed in a humorous Jester mask raised her voice in a chatter.
“He’s still using the Kingslayer I gave him!”
“You stupid Gretel, I’m the one who gave it to him, not you! It was mine from the beginning!”
“And yet you were so stubborn about using it yourself for the rest of your life! You greedy pig!”
“Don’t, don’t fight, you two…”
At the bickering of the young siblings, a sister of the clan wearing a bird-beak mask mumbled timidly.
“Sien will be here s-soon… He’s right in front…”
“It is as you say, Alice.”
“Y-Yes… Clan leader.”
Before long, a familiar voice echoed from among the brothers and sisters of the clan.
“My dear brothers and sisters.”
Amidst those wearing various ceremonial masks, the Mother of Assassins, who alone showed her face, continued.
“The time has come, so let us begin the preparations for the presiding.”
The Temple of the Moon.
A place built at the peak of the Night Sky Mountains, steeped in the most secret traditions in the world.
At that very place, which one must climb for several days at the risk of their life even with the body of a Nightwalker, the long-awaited final guest finally revealed himself.
***
Creeeeak.
As the frozen marble doors were pushed open amidst the passage of time and the cold air, the interior of the temple, which seemed impossible to have been built at the mountain’s peak, was revealed.
The surroundings were silent.
On the marble pillars and walls surrounding the area like a gallery, the history of the Nightwalker Clan, passed down through generations, was carved in relief.
Every time a new Walker of the Night was born, every time one died, every time the Rite of Confirmation to become a Master was held, every time the Rite of Ordination to become a High Master was held, and every time a new clan leader succeeded—the major and minor affairs of the clan were endlessly carved into the history upon the pure white marble.
And right there, a shadow stood silently, holding a chisel and a carving knife, engraving a relief onto the marble.
“You’ve come, Sien.”
“Luna.”
The wisest one, the Consigliere, Luna Nightwalker.
“You arrived just as I was finishing the work.”
When a family member is born, a star is carved into the ceiling; when a family member dies, the carved star is filled in and dropped.
Only a few dozen stars were floating on the ceiling.
He lowered his head.
An uncountable number of stars had fallen and were spread beneath Sien’s feet.
That place was a graveyard of stars.
Every time a star falls, the star that was carved on the ceiling is filled with volcanic ash and plaster, and the shape of a new star is carved into the floor.
The remains of stars that had fallen and faded throughout the clan’s history.
‘Abel’s Star,’ which must have been carved into the ceiling until not long ago, was no exception.
“Carving death isn’t exactly a pleasant task.”
Luna spoke with a bitter smile.
“The next time I carve a relief, I would like to engrave more auspicious news.”
“That’s how it will be.”
To them, family is everything. That is why every major event that happens to a family member is recorded here without omission.
Just as the night sky records the affairs of the stars, the Night Sky Mountains record the affairs of the Nightwalker Clan.
The fact that Sien, who completed his baptism at the youngest age, is becoming a Master at the youngest age will also be recorded.
The same applies even if Sien fails the rite and dies. In that case, he will be recorded as a fallen star.
“I didn’t come all this way just to get the clan’s consent.”
“Oh? Then what did you come for?”
Luna asked back, sounding amused. Sien replied.
“I came to prove that I am a true Master of the 1st style.”
By what standard do we claim to be a Master?
Strictly speaking, the Rite of Confirmation is not a place to prove mastery of a sword style or the attainment of enlightenment. it is merely a negotiation table to gain the clan’s consent.
Whether one has truly reached the ultimate level of a sword style—there is no way in this world to mathematically measure or quantify such a thing.
The person who had taught him that realization was right before Sien’s eyes. Sien, too, did not deny that realization.
But he did so no longer.