Splatter, the rising drops of blood and the looming death.
A duel between the Knight and the one pulling the light.
Facing the brilliant light he so longed for.
Every time the light struck his body, every time he felt pain, the Beast recalled the past. The past he had lost. As memories returned, the Beast’s muscles contracted. Its once massive frame shrank with a creak.
Once three or four times the size of a human, it had now reduced to about half that. The compressed muscles and skin had hardened even more. The Beast no longer drooped its arms or bent its waist. Slowly, the Beast straightened its back.
The Beast’s pupils settled.
“My name holds no value anymore.”
“It became meaningless.”
A voice echoed in the Beast’s ears.
It was the human voice the Beast first sought to understand, and ultimately, the human’s scream it never grasped.
“My name is now nothing to me. Those who knew my name, those who would call me by it, you’ve killed them all. Right?”
Thus spoke the human.
“Take it.”
“I can’t give you anything, but I can give you a name. So take it.”
As she took her own life, the woman gave a name to the Beast that had loved her.
“Barta.”
“That is my name.”
The moment that name crossed its mind.
The Beast regained all its memories. It remembered the path it had walked. Countless memories crashed over the Beast, awakening its reason.
And so the Beast became a king.
The noble King of Beasts.
Barta, the King of Beasts, opened its eyes.
2.
Lac, swinging his sword, suddenly realized.
The beast he was facing was transforming. It was becoming something entirely different, and Lac sensed it instinctively.
The atmosphere, the air, the flow shifted.
The future Lac had been seeing started to waver.
The movements he had laid out through foresight, the hundreds and thousands of sword paths preemptively drawn in the air, began to snap one by one. The Beast before him appeared to split into dozens.
Drip, and.
Blood flowed from Lac’s eyes as tiny vessels burst. He gritted his teeth and swung his sword. But the balance was already lost. Lac began to be pushed back slowly.
And then.
“······.”
The moment the Beast’s pupils settled.
The future Lac had pursued shattered entirely. Beyond the wrecked future, the Beast reached out. The instant its hand met with the blade, Lac’s body was lifted off the ground.
“···!”
KAAAAAAAN!
With a deafening roar that seemed to tear his eardrums, Lac tumbled to the ground. Struggling to stand with the Holy Sword stuck in the floor, Lac raised his head. The Beast simply glared silently at Lac without pursuing him.
Its eyes, unnaturally calm.
Finally, the Beast opened its maw. The sound of spitting blood no longer echoed. All that could be heard was the human voice resonating through the air.
“···Ah.”
A calm voice reverberated through the air.
Then slowly, very slowly, the Beast lowered its head. It wasn’t high enough to show submission, yet not low enough to seem arrogant. Stopping at an appropriate position, the Beast spoke.
“Thank you to you, who awakened my pride.”
Though its head lowered, its eyes remained fixed on Lac’s. Lac’s eyes trembled. Thank you? For what? The Beast that had brutally shredded its family-like warriors was expressing gratitude in human language, and Lac felt his mind go blank.
“My name is Barta.”
Barta reached out.
With a rough movement, Barta yanked out his own right arm, not his own. Pop, squelch, and the sound of flesh and blood sprayed everywhere.
Whoosh.
Barta lightly swung the arm he had pulled out. Following the trajectory drawn by his right arm, the wind swirled, and snowflakes soared into the sky. The beast skin, crudely attached to bone, also detached along with the wind.
What remained was a straightened bone.
Rough yet shaped like a sword. Barta pointed the bone sword at Lac.
“A Knight.”
One who lives by the sword.
One who proves his life with the sword.
“What is your name?”
There was no name to reveal to a beast.
Lac stood up, gritting his teeth. With a crunch, his knees made noises as he charged at the Beast. Though his body had reached its limits, Lac ran faster than ever before.
Countless futures sprawled before his eyes.
Countless sword paths appeared.
Seeing them in a blurred manner, Lac swung his great sword. Even in an unstable stance, the trajectory of the blade approached perfection. Yet Lac’s sword could never be perfect.
Because it was unstable. Because he lacked understanding of the sword.
The Knights who dedicated their lives to a single sword had reached a realm Lac hadn’t yet touched.
Thus.
Crunch.
The uncertain future Lac had drawn shattered entirely. At the moment Lac’s sword was about to touch Barta, all sword paths disappeared from Lac’s view. No longer could he see the path to victory. And, in a time that seemed to stop, Barta moved.
Splitting the instant, the sword flashed like lightning.
The wielded sword engulfed Lac’s blade. The upward swing from below met Lac’s descending sword like a guillotine, launching it high into the air.
KAAAN!
Lac’s shoulder jerked back. With a snap, his shoulder dislocated upon a simple clash, and Lac had to realize the weight imbued within the opponent’s technique.
Crack.
Gritting his teeth, Lac grabbed his dislocated shoulder with his other arm and twisted his body to swing his sword. He drew upon all the techniques he had known, all that he had learned.
But they did not work.
They were all countered. No matter how cleanly he executed his techniques, no matter how he tried to throw in variables, the opponent countered Lac from a step ahead as if seeing the future.
Swish.
Every time the Beast lightly swung its sword, Lac had no choice but to clash his sword with the full intention of dying. But even that couldn’t last long. Lac was flung back and rolled on the ground. His hand gripping the sword trembled violently.
Powerlessness, humiliation, and hatred.
When he lifted his head, the Beast was still looking down on him. Not pursuing him, it opened its mouth again to question. It asked once more.
“I asked your name.”
Lac staggered, standing up.
Without a word, he lifted his sword. It meant he bore no name to speak, yet though he didn’t reveal a name, one thing was certain. Lac had not accepted defeat.
Seeing that, Barta calmly readied himself.
No more conversation was needed.
Showing mercy was an insult to one’s opponent. It was a dishonor to trample on the other’s pride. If the opponent chose not to reveal their name, Barta would only respect that. So he let out a long breath.
Whoosh.
He stepped strongly with his own left leg.
He pulled back his artificially created right leg. The breath exhaled was calm.
“······.”
The air trembled.
Lac also prepared for his final strike. The blustering snowstorm momentarily surged skyward.
3.
Rania fiddled with the crystal orb.
The orb sent by Cardi contained information related to the King of Beasts. Satisfying all conditions, Rania accessed the information effortlessly and learned more about the King of Beasts.
His name is Barta.
The origin of the name is unknown.
Though he never revealed his name to anyone, during his final confrontation with Ganikalt, the King of Beasts referred to himself as such. Barta.
“Hmm···.”
Rania tapped the crystal orb.
Having read all the memories contained within, she could only let out a sigh at the end.
“This is insane.”
The King of Beasts, Barta.
Rania had witnessed through the crystal orb the scene of him clashing evenly with Ganikalt. The word ‘evenly’ was no exaggeration in the slightest.
Both dealt fatal wounds to each other.
Blood splattered everywhere.
Fighting desperately on the edge of life and death.
A battle where the lines of victory and defeat became utterly meaningless was taking place there. Rania sighed deeply and tilted her head back.
Hoo···.
Galatrick style.
So-called, this style of swordsmanship, Rania had faced many times. From the Sword Master Kuntel, the Death’s Blade Ganikalt, and Kyle.
The swordsmanship transformed according to the path the wielder had chosen. Though rooted in the same source, the branches and shapes of techniques diverged. Among them were even sword techniques that strayed from the main stream…
‘So freaking complicated. To the point of irritation.’
Too complicated.
Recalling the clash with the Sword of Yeocheon, Rania furrowed her brow. Groping at the gaping hole in her chest, she groaned inwardly.
It was a memory she truly wished to forget. Even now, if she were to face Kyle again, she couldn’t be confident of victory.
Incredibly intricate swordsmanship.
Sufficient to be called a mage’s nemesis, it was swordsmanship resting at the pinnacle of all techniques.
“But.”
Rania tapped the crystal orb again.
“Is this guy also Galatrick style?”
In the memories of fierce battles.
The King of Beasts, Barta, employed the same swordsmanship as Ganikalt. The sword that had cleaved the waves of beasts with a single strike was repelled with the identical technique.
That meant…
“That he could do the same thing.”
Simply by appearing.
By lightly wielding a sword, he swept away all sword wielders, which earned Ganikalt the title of ‘Death’s Blade.’ He was hailed as the most feared calamity.
If he could do the same thing.
By all means, she had to prevent the King of Beasts from completing it. Rania felt that way.
*
The moment he tried to swing his sword.
Lac saw Barta’s sword swinging before his own. Time stretched long as the crudely formed sword began to move slowly. The moment the blade reached his eyes, snap, the snowflake shattered.
The snowflakes, the tiny white particles.
They shattered even smaller.
Feeling it couldn’t split any further, Barta’s sword erased everything it touched back to nothing and surged forward. It drew a perfect trajectory with the blade.
Tick, ticktickticktick.
The snow piled on the ground was pushed aside by the trajectory. The angle sliced through the air with a scream. The space that had been severed instantly filled, and the wind rushed in.
From the rush of wind came.
The decaying stench resembling death.
‘···Ah.’
Before the upcoming blow, Lac realized.
He couldn’t win. He couldn’t counter. What was approaching was death. There was no escape from death. The blade he had been wielding shook.
‘I will die.’
Without achieving anything.
Without avenging.
He would die here.
‘No.’
Lac refused to accept that fact. The trembling blade suddenly stilled. Lac recalled the words he had heard from warriors.
“A warrior must be a warrior until the moment of death.”
“Resist until the very end.”
Struggling against death, Lac clashed his Holy Sword against the encroaching death. The sound of metal clashing did not echo. No sound was heard at all. In the silence, the place they met began to creak and tear apart.
Space ripped silently.
The torn space repaired and tore again in cycles. The shocks and winds generated by the filling space battered Lac’s body continuously. Every inch of him creaked as if torn.
Crack, crackcrackcrack!
He was pushed back.
Continuously pushed back. Yet Lac never let go of his sword. Gripping the sword that wanted to be flung away tightly, he bared his teeth and braved the impact.
Drip, drip.
He bled.
Blood streamed from his eyes and ears, nose and mouth as if possessed. Yet Lac swung his sword even as he was pushed back. The encroaching death began to split apart.
Swish.
Lac’s sword cut through death.
He had cut through a mere strip. With the sound of air slicing by him, death extended with a shriek, slicing the forest behind him in half. The sound of trees toppling echoed behind him, and Lac spat out blood.
He may have cut it.
But he did not win.
Lac, coughing blood, knelt. As the swirling snowstorm cleared, Barta revealed himself. Barta raised a hand to gently caress his bruised chest.
“······.”
The strike that had cut through death.
That strike had grazed Barta’s skin ever so slightly. Drying blood stained Barta’s hand, and he quietly lifted his sword as if in homage.
“Next.”
The moment he faced this human who had conjoined his attacks, the King of Beasts understood, instinctively, the potential held by the opponent. The future the human would reach would be a clear threat to himself.
Thus, he had to kill him now.
“Next time, I shall promise.”
Bowing his head to the one who had awakened his pride.
“Next time.”
Beyond the snowy expanse, outside the North.
As he walked back to where he had come from, he spoke.
“I hope to hear your name.”
The King of Beasts receded.
As he gazed at the retreating figure, Lac clenched his teeth. He wanted to get up, holding his sword. But, already reaching his limit, his body would not move. Kneeling, Lac shrieked.
He slammed the ground, yelling.
On the snowy ground filled with the corpses of warriors, Lac mulled over his humiliation. In his powerlessness, for not having achieved anything, Lac gritted his teeth and screamed.
On this day.
The Guardian of the North failed to protect.
Not the humans of the North he had to defend.
Not his own pride.
Not the pride of the trampled warriors.
He had failed to protect anything.
