A human’s life set ablaze.
The Sword Demon, Draka’s life ignited.
The scent of the path he walked is anything but sweet. It’s grotesque, suffocating, and filled with venom. Wielding his sword, the spirit unleashed his fury.
SWISH!
With every inch the sword moved, blood erupted like a fountain. Chunks of beasts fell thud as the gushing blood became a crimson fog, obscuring his vision. In the gore-soaked meadow, the spirit danced.
Swinging the sword, swinging it, and swinging it again.
Slaughtering every beast in sight, the spirit advanced. With each step he took, the corpses piled up like crazy. What once seemed like an endless horde of beasts was starting to dwindle.
Flicker.
The pack of beasts, once rushing at him under the king’s command, began to retreat under Draka’s overwhelming presence. The beasts felt terror emanating from the specter before them.
Is that truly human?
Even as the beasts halted, Draka continued to swing his sword. Covered in blood, he threw himself into the gnashing jaws of the beasts, tearing through them over and over.
“Come!”
Draka raged.
“More, more, MORE…”
Even in tatters, grinning while swinging his sword, he truly embodies the very essence of a demon.
THUD.
And then, the King of Beasts moved.
Crushing the terrified beasts beneath its feet, it pointed at the spirit. Run forward. The demon’s in front; the fearsome king’s behind. Either way, the beasts face only death.
ROAR!
The beasts screamed as they charged towards Draka. Watching them all get minced into meat, the King of Beasts raised its sword.
THUD.
Amidst the falling blood and chunks…
The demon and the King of Beasts faced each other. Draka’s bloodshot eyes glowed ominously. The King of Beasts’ eyes shimmered a deep, clear blue.
RRAAAGH!
A sound of friction rang out without warning.
They swung their swords at each other simultaneously. Before the echo of the clash could fade, there was another clang, and another clang… The sounds of swords clashing echoed louder.
—
Carrying the memories of the King of Beasts, this creature is separate from the beast king Barta. Though it inherited memories, it doesn’t hold the same pride as Barta. Its sense of being a knight is faint.
What the beast possesses is the authority of a king and the arrogance of being at the pinnacle of all beasts.
It’s not the arrogance of the weak. It can be called the kind of confidence that the strong—those who stand atop the food chain—must naturally possess. The King of Beasts had the strength to back it up.
RRAAAGH!
The beast’s body, originally rough and filled with muck, has now been perfected by the forgotten deities’ authority. It possesses strength comparable to Barta’s physical form.
A body inhumanly strong. A perfect physique.
With that body, the beast unleashed the sword techniques buried in its memory. Though it did not understand the intricacies of those techniques, it had the physique capable of mimicking them.
CLANG, CLANG, RRAAAGH!
As the beast swung the sword, it felt an intense unease. The human before it wasn’t faltering. A human it could easily shove aside wasn’t falling.
RRAAAGH!
The clashing sound of swords reverberated.
At a glance, it seemed like the beast and Draka were equally matched. But this standoff wouldn’t last long.
Superior physical prowess and an overwhelmingly heavy sword.
These two elements combined produced strikes from the beast that shook Draka’s frame. It made the flames of his life flicker.
THUD.
With every clash, a deafening sound erupted from Draka’s fingers gripping the sword and his ankles planted on the ground. Blood exploded from wounds left by beasts biting and clawing.
Blood flowed. Life drained away.
Draka felt the flickering flame within him begin to waver. Death was closing in.
“Ah.”
Yet.
“I see, I see, I see…”
Still, Draka’s eyes did not waver. His pupils widened at their limit in a chilling manner. Those eyes did not see the beast before him. What Draka saw was the path of his own sword.
The path of the sword, his life, the sword’s way.
Draka immersed himself in the blade he wielded.
He saw only the path the sword must follow. The only thing he focused on was his own path. Everything else held no value for Draka.
“No one, NO ONE can stop me.”
A selfish and arrogant human.
He reached this level because he believed unconditionally in his own path. The demon beheld the flames born from the last moments of his life.
The path of fire burning with a bitter stench.
As he burned into ashes, Draka saw the path of the sword. Magnificent. That would be his final blow. He stomped down.
THUD, BOOM!
Draka’s sword moved.
Faster than ever, rougher than ever, fiercer than ever. The last sword flickered wildly like raging flames.
WILD SWORD!
The demon’s sword moved.
The technique bore no name. Draka could not find a name to attach to his life. Just as he prepared the last blow of his life, the beast accidentally stepped back.
One step back due to being overwhelmed.
The beast felt rage upon realizing it had retreated. It too gripped its sword tightly. It recalled a swordfighter more vivid in memory than any other.
…Ganikalt van Galatrick.
The King of Beasts tried to mimic the last strike it saw from that swordsman. Thus, the path the beast carved out was nothing short of perfect. A path of breathtaking beauty. It had to be.
It was a path imitated from the strongest swordsman, the most noble first hero. A path that could only be beautiful.
Upon colliding with that path was Draka’s path. The demon’s path was trivial compared to that sword’s way. Yet, at the moment the paths collided, it was the beast’s sword that was pushed back.
…If the current situation were observed by the King of Beasts Barta rather than the beast, he would undoubtedly snicker. And with disdain, he would tell the beast, “What value is there in a sword without meaning?”
CLASH, CLASH CLASH!
The nameless chaotic sword overwhelmed the beast’s blade. Pushing the beast’s sword aside, Draka’s sword advanced a hand’s breadth further. The blade grazed the beast’s leg on a low trajectory.
SWISH.
The beast’s right leg fell away. It was a jagged cut as if torn off. Staggering, the beast lost its balance but swung its sword again. Draka did not evade that sword.
THUNK, Draka’s right arm severed.
With one hand gripping the sword, Draka moved forward another step. He swung his sword, shredding the beast’s right arm that clutched its blade.
GUSH.
With blood surging, the beast’s right arm and sword hit the ground. The moment the beast lost its sword, its left arm moved.
SMASH!
The beast’s claw gripped Draka’s head. The long claws pierced his eye sockets, coloring his vision red.
SNAP.
As the beast tried to crush Draka’s skull, Draka’s sword severed the beast’s left arm. Having lost both arms, Draka stepped lightly toward the beast.
WILD SWORD, then FLOWING SWORD!
To complete the remaining path of his sword still unbroken, to mark the end, Draka swung his sword. Perhaps his life itself.
CRASH!
Even that last act was anything but discreet.
Loud, chaotic, and immensely rough. The sword remained true to its origin till the end. The demon’s sword split the beast’s head in two and went further, cleaving its body in half.
SWISH.
The human’s sword laid waste.
The human’s determination cleaved the calamity.
—
THUD, the King of Beasts knelt. Though he collapsed, Draka still stood firmly on the ground. His gaze peered beyond.
A path opened as the King of Beasts fell.
Beyond that path lay the Betrayer.
The nemesis who had stolen everything from him, the enemy he pursued his whole life stood there. Yet Draka realized he could go no further.
The time allotted to him was over.
He swung his sword, knowing this moment would come.
“Why did you make such a choice? Why did you risk your life here knowing you can’t reach your enemy?” Draka’s answer to such queries was always the same.
…This is the most efficient way.
Draka turned back.
There lay a blade that could reach the calamity. A blade honed from ashes. To achieve his purpose, Draka did not care about the means or the end. As always, he made a judgment.
Sending that blade to the Betrayer would surely be the most critical variable for him.
The fact he couldn’t achieve revenge with his own hands was regrettable, but… a human who understands that time is running out ultimately makes choices. Draka chose and was now paying the price.
“…”
Lac looked at Draka.
Draka looked at Lac.
“Why…”
“This isn’t a path for you.”
Draka interrupted Lac’s words.
“Just as the ash used me, I too only use you. It seems sending you intact would be more helpful than me approaching him.”
It was simply the result of judgment.
Muttering that, Draka lightly swung his arm. He threw the sword he’d clutched until the end to Lac. The sword, twirling in the air, lodged into the ground by Lac’s feet with a THUNK.
“Take it.”
That was Draka’s life and demigod.
For a swordsman, the sword is part of his soul.
“It might help somewhere.”
Muttering that, Draka pointed with his now empty hand at the path he had opened with his life.
“Go, Holy One.”
Lac silently drew the bloodstained sword from the ground. Strapping the sword to his waist, Lac briefly raised a salute. Not to Draka the human, but to Draka the swordsman who had achieved mastery.
As Lac vanished past Draka with his salute, Natida paused briefly by Draka’s side.
“…”
Natida regarded Draka silently.
The human who swung his sword with his very life. The human before her resembled an empty shell. A man confronting death. She posed a question to him.
“Do you have any final words?”
“Kill him without fail.”
The demon answered to her question.
“That is the life I cast aside.”
Until the very end, the human chose to be a demon.
Not the feeble human who lost his territory and even his daughter—having ultimately lost everything… he longed to remain a demon obsessed with vengeance.
“Without fail…”
Muttering that, Natida flowed past Draka. Draka slowly lowered his arm, gazing at the backs of the two advancing figures.
…His stage had ended.
The end of the stage, the final act—a long-awaited destruction.
The flames burning within Draka extinguished silently. When the fire went out, only darkness remained. In the tranquil darkness, Draka’s eyes drooped closed.
In his last moment, the face of his daughter arose.
That was the last picture the human, longing to be a demon, could not let go of. Visualizing his daughter, the human closed his eyes. Those eyes would never open again.
That was…
The ultimate fate of a human wishing to become a demon.
