I obtained the answer from the Demon King.
However, that didn’t mean I had immediately acquired the means to cut down the Four Perils.
It is no easy task to obtain a weapon with a sharpness capable of slicing through a Demon weapon, let alone the hide of the Four Perils.
Would it even be possible if I alone toppled the Galas Empire, which was said to hold half the continent’s power?
At that time, such a feat was impossible for me, as I had not yet even reached the rank of Legion Commander.
Thus, the second method—finding a weapon imbued with an absolute will—was my only option.
I dedicated my time to searching for it.
Someone might ask: Was it really that urgent to find a way to eliminate the Four Perils, who were technically allies at the moment, even if they might turn into enemies one day?
It was urgent.
Because at that time, I was on the verge of becoming a Legion Commander, and to seize that position, I had to defeat the Legion Commander’s personal Guardian Knights.
Defeating the Guardian Knights of the Six Corps Commanders one by one and then challenging a specific Legion Commander to take their rank…
That was the only path to becoming a Legion Commander, and the biggest obstacle in my way was the Four Perils.
Neither my weapons nor any of my techniques could even leave a scratch on their hides.
As long as I couldn’t find a way past them, becoming a Legion Commander was a distant dream.
That was why I crossed the continent, desperately searching for a weapon possessed of its own will.
During my travels, I reached the northern part of the Asran Kingdom, the place where I had first been transported to this continent.
There, I came face-to-face with a peculiar old man.
He was clearly an ordinary human.
No, he was a shabby, frail old man.
He was so decrepit that it wouldn’t have been strange if he collapsed and died right then and there.
Yet, every time I looked at him, I felt a chilling sensation—a warning from my instincts.
Why?
What was different about this old man, whom I could kill with a mere flick of my finger?
Somehow, believing that I could find the answer I sought there, I stayed for a while and observed him.
I gathered information about the old man by watching from the sidelines and I learned the truth.
This old man was a famous madman in the village.
He was 99 years old.
Considering the hygiene and medical standards of the continent at the time, reaching such an age was nothing short of a miracle.
In his youth, dreaming of becoming a Knight, he had rushed out of the village to wander through battlefields, fighting monsters and the Demon Clan.
Because of that, his body was ruined, and he had returned to his hometown with a diagnosis that he could no longer fight.
This misfortune happened when he was 30 years old.
With his muscles and nerves severed, even moving must have been an ordeal.
But from the day he returned home, he never missed a single day of swinging his sword.
He didn’t practice some grand swordsmanship.
Just horizontal slashes and vertical slashes.
He repeated the most basic strikes until the sun went down.
At first, he couldn’t even manage 100 repetitions.
It was natural, given his body had been told it could no longer fight.
Performing intense exercise with severed muscles and nerves was an impossible task.
But the old man did not give up.
He woke up early in the morning to swing his sword, and that continued for weeks, months, years, and decades.
The number of slashes he could perform in a day increased to thousands, then tens of thousands.
Did his muscles and nerves recover?
Not at all!
Those severed wounds were of the kind that would never heal but his indomitable will surpassed even irreparable injuries.
And so, 69 years passed.
I witnessed him, known in the village as the old man obsessed with the sword and I realized the truth far too late—the source of the strangely intense fear I felt.
‘His sword—the will imbued within it—can cut through the world!’
My body had already lived for hundreds of years.
Even I, whose emotions had worn down to a state of nothingness, couldn’t hide my admiration.
His sword stood above any blade I had ever seen.
That will was enough to cut the world and more, something I dared to call absolute.
The unfortunate thing was that it was incomplete.
It was clearly a will that could cut the world, but it was an unfinished—no, an unfinishable—sword.
Now 99 years old, the old man, who had recently started sleeping all day, seemed unlikely to finish that sword.
Just as I was about to give up my lingering attachment and leave the village…
‘Follow me.’
Did he know I had been watching him all this time?
The old man, whose mind had been drifting in and out of lucidity, pointed directly at me.
If it had been anyone else, I might not have followed him and would have resumed my journey.
But drawn by an unknown premonition, I followed the old man.
The place we finally reached was the deep mountains where he always practiced.
In the middle of a forest surrounded by dense woods, there was a small clearing.
It was the place where the old man had spent his life—69 years—refining his slashes.
‘You have been watching me for a long time. Probably because you realize the true intent of my sword.’
Surprisingly, the voice did not belong to a man on the brink of death.
It was clear and bright, like that of a young man.
His eyes, which had looked like rotten fish eyes, sparkled with intelligence.
Of course, I knew well what that state indicated.
A final spark of lucidity.
It was the final phenomenon where the last flame of life burns brightly before the end.
‘I really want to show you. My sword. The completion of what has existed as incomplete until now.’
The old man picked up the rusted iron sword he never let go of.
It was likely the sword that had protected him since he was young.
Rusted by the passage of years, with a chipped blade—it was a sword as aged and worn as the old man himself.
But the moment the old man gripped the sword…
-Gooooo!
The very atmosphere stopped moving due to that momentum.
Silence.
In an artificial environment of a tranquil mind…
-Ssss.
A picture-perfect horizontal slash followed.
Even now, that moment remains vivid in my mind.
‘I’ll die!’
I, who was about to become a Legion Commander and had accumulated karma through hundreds of years of training, trembled in fear.
I had no choice but to kneel to avoid that threat.
Trembling, I stared at the old man who had shown me that incredible horizontal slash.
There was no… movement.
Having shown only the horizontal slash, he died on the spot, unable to show the vertical one.
And then, an unbelievable sight occurred.
-Thump, rummmble!
Around us, thousands, tens of thousands of trees that made up the lush forest collapsed.
Swordsmanship?
Qi?
There was no such addition.
***
He had created a miracle, cutting down the entire forest and all its trees with nothing but a pure horizontal slash.
At that moment, I realized what the “will” the Demon King spoke of truly was.
It showed me the next path I had to take, the stage of enlightenment that had been blocked until now.
I carved that image into my mind so I would never forget it.
And then…
-Snap.
Like the old man who died after performing his completed sword, his iron sword also snapped as if its life had ended.
But it didn’t mean a complete disappearance.
The old man’s remaining will and life force were still leaving remnants on the blade.
I embraced that sword like a precious treasure.
Because I sensed that the day I could manifest the will dwelling in that sword—the remnants of the old man—would be the day I could ascend to the rank of Legion Commander.
Anus.
Originally, it was a nameless iron sword used by the old man, but it was a sword that gained a name because of me.
Through my meeting with the old man, I was able to obtain clues about the path I should take and the domain I should reach.
Thanks to that, I started my training again from the beginning and was finally able to awaken the will dwelling in the sword.
That is exactly this.
-Woooooong!
It is the tangible realm where will can be materialized.
I wrap my will around the half-broken sword.
Depending on how much that will is honed, the sharpness also changes.
The will I hold now, polished for nearly 1,000 years, can cut through anything.
Even if it is the absolute hide of the Four Perils.
“Clatter!”
Falling to the floor were the pieces of the Four Perils that had been rushing in fiercely.
Tens, hundreds, thousands—no, tens of thousands of pieces.
Through slashes that occurred in an instant, their bodies were sliced so finely that their forms could not even be distinguished.
“….”
Behemoth, who was watching the scene, fell silent.
Feelings of surprise and then astonishment began to crawl out.
How could he know?
That in the past, I had also defeated his Four Perils.
This was a repetition of that event, which I couldn’t finish back then due to the Demon King’s intervention.
“Youuuu!”
But what followed astonishment was pure rage.
The Four Perils were his subordinates and comrades who had been with him for a long time.
Having lost those precious companions, he couldn’t help but be enraged.
-Fwoosh!
He moves.
No, it would be more accurate to say he vanished like magic.
It was a realm of speed that even I, who had trained for 1,000 years, could not perceive.
It made sense.
The Demon Beast Legion Commander was a being who showcased peak movements using his innate physical body.
His physical strength and the karma of his training were the best even among the Legion Commanders.
That movement, much like a beast’s, was an act of slaughter that defied prediction.
However…
‘Prediction close to foresight.’
If I can’t perceive it, I just have to predict it.
That has nothing to do with the energy I recovered.
I immediately combined the information given to me.
The direction of his eyes before he moved.
Rhe movement of his muscles.
The position of his hands and feet.
The vibration of the atmosphere.
All that information drew various possibilities through my experience.
From there, I set a direction close to the correct answer through my long years of battle.
And…
-Slice!
I swing my sword without hesitation.
-Snip!
His sharply protruding claws are cut off. It was inevitable.
Anus is a sword that can embody the old man’s will and obsession.
That will is strong enough to slice through even the hide of the Four Perils—which boasts absolute defense—as if it were a radish.
No matter how hard his claws were, it was impossible to withstand the sharpness of that sword.
“….”
But he doesn’t panic.
With Mistilteinn in his left hand…
“Clang!”
He swung it and blocked my sword.
“It’s certainly different.”
As expected of a Demon weapon created from the Demon King’s horn, a rare material.
“Uaaaagh!” He lets out a roar.
His way of fighting relies strictly on instinct.
Therefore, his movements contain wildness, freedom, and countless irregularities.
This maneuver is poison to Knights accustomed to forms.
But it was useless against me.
Because I had also experienced a realm that wasn’t bound by forms.
Rather, his movements, which relied on instinct, were only easier to predict.
“Clang, crash!”
We clash again and again.
As if we knew each other’s thoughts, cancellation followed cancellation.
It was a battle of pure strength.
A collision of full power to push each other back without any technique.
“Kyahaha!”
Due to the shockwaves generated there, the surrounding Demon Clan members were dying off.
However…
“Skreeeeech —”
My body is pushed back.
In a match of pure power, the one with the advantage was Behemoth.
It couldn’t be helped.
Right now, I have only recovered energy that doesn’t even reach 50% of my prime but my opponent is a 100% whole Demon Beast Legion Commander.
Furthermore, isn’t he a being superior to any other Legion Commander in terms of physical perfection?
That’s why I’m bound to be pushed back in a contest of strength.
“Gyahahaha!”
He bursts into a maniacal laugh as if victory is right before his eyes.
Certainly, if the match continued like this, it would end with the victory of the one who had reached the limit of his physical body and thus would never tire.
But there was one thing he overlooked.
-Slice!
I cut something.
“…!”
And Behemoth was horrified by that fact.
It was only natural.
Anus had just sliced through Mistilteinn, one of the strongest Demon weapons he boasted.
“Crunch!”
My blade cut past his flank and through his entire upper body.