Hard Carried by My Sword-Chapter 105

When the drake crashed to the ground, the night sky it had conjured began to unravel, having lost its source. The darkened sky turned blue once more, and sunlight poured through from above.

The Stigma of the Guardian, which had temporarily gone dormant, greedily absorbed the light. Thanks to its absurd effect, it restored nearly all of the stamina and Aura Leon had expended during his evasion of the dark rain.

“Phew.”

With just three deep breaths, Leon shed all his fatigue and raised the sword in his grasp to mid-guard into the Pflug stance. A posture with the hilt held near the waist and the blade angled upward—like holding a plow—his center of gravity shifted forward, ready to lunge at any moment.

He had to end this fight before the drake’s wings recovered.

Push with full force. Even if I can’t finish it in one blow, I can’t stop until a fatal opening appears.

The drake knew this, too. That was why it wasn’t advancing recklessly. If it took flight again, they would never bring it down a second time. It would simply rain down attacks from high above without ever touching the ground.

That would be the end of everything. This moment was the first and last chance. Grasping that truth, Leon shot forward like lightning.

Almost simultaneously, the drake’s claws tore into the canyon wall. Leon’s movements were several times faster than the monster had anticipated.

With the first step, he surpassed the wind. With the second, he reached the speed of sound. It was an acceleration that seemed to defy air resistance.

Moving faster than even his afterimage while wreathed in the Holy Fire, Leon rushed forward like a white comet.

El-Cid chuckled, having seen through the principle of Leon’s acceleration.

—Using your head for once, huh? You projected heat a beat ahead along your path to disperse the air and eliminate resistance. Not bad.

It was a double-edged technique. While it allowed incredible speed, the air displacement made it impossible to breathe along the path, and the heat projection made his destination somewhat predictable.

Still, only a rare few could recognize and exploit that. And luckily, the drake wasn’t one of them.

“Grrrrk?! Grrrr?!”

It tried to track Leon with its one remaining eye, but subsonic movement couldn’t be followed with eyesight alone. Leon ducked into the blind spot and slashed. Golden light carved through flesh, dark blood sprayed, and the scent of scorched meat filled the air.

The drake shrieked, slashed and seared all at once. Even a single bee sting left the body trembling—this was like being sliced with a red-hot blade.

Leon’s technique, Eclipse, was a decisive one that he had developed while the Grand Chariot was still in the works. Its cutting power exceeded even Aura Fire.

Good. It’s working.

Leon immediately dashed away, eyes sharp. Unlike the Grand Chariot, Eclipse required no lengthy prep time, making it perfect for hit-and-run tactics. Even if it didn’t inflict a lethal blow in one strike, repeated cuts would do the job.

He’d keep driving it, denying it any escape, until every drop of blood drained from that massive body. Leon, having infiltrated its blind spot once again, slashed, and more fresh crimson burst forth.

“Kyaoooooh!”

The drake howled in agony, conjuring a wall of darkness around itself as if to shield its wounded body. It wasn’t a bad move.

It was a barrier that erased anything it touched. Even ten thousand archers firing in unison couldn’t break through this Primal Magic defense. Any ordinary Swordmaster would’ve had trouble cutting through it with even an Aura Blade.

But Leon? The hero walked straight through that darkness like it was morning fog.

“What's the matter? A snake ashamed of its body? Hiding behind a curtain?”

Wreathed in the holy fire, the dark fog couldn’t even slow him. There was no need to swing. With each step Leon took, the darkness recoiled.

His vision had shortened slightly, but his movement was unhindered. He scorched through the shadows, striking again and tearing open the drake’s belly and unleashing a torrent of toxic blood.

Of course, the drake wasn’t just sitting back. Whenever it felt pain, it responded with devastating retaliation, razing the area indiscriminately.

Its simple “get hit, hit back” strategy was crude yet terrifyingly effective. The monster understood that instinctively.

Its first counter missed, and so did the second, but Leon frowned as he carved into it again. The wounds were shallow. He couldn’t thrust in deep enough because he was overly aware of the inevitable counterstrike and backed off in anticipation.

Just knowing the counter was coming created a mental shackle. If this was intentional, it was impressive—more cunning than many seasoned tacticians.

I’ll need to go a half-step further.

If fear was the problem, then he’d just factor that into his calculations. Determined, Leon lunged again. This time, he closed just a bit more into the edge of danger, where he could still dodge the counter by a hair’s breadth.

Then, El-Cid clicked his tongue.

—Dummy.

Before Leon even realized what he meant mid-swing, he was faced with the drake’s blood-red eye glaring straight at him.

“Ah.”

A chill ran down his spine. The hairs on his neck bristled. He leaped back instinctively, before thought could even catch up. Accelerating through the drake’s range, retreating as far as he could—then the beast moved.

The darkness, which had masked its true speed and power, now surged forth at full strength, resisting even the Holy Fire. The shadows caught Leon’s ankle.

“Shit!”

Thanks to the Stigmata and his divine energy, he didn’t melt down or anything, but his movements slowed as if he were trapped in quicksand.

It’d take at least three seconds to shake it off completely. The drake wouldn’t give him that.

Right on cue, it spun like a top and lashed out its tail like a whip. It was dozens of tons of mass driven by centrifugal force; a direct hit would pulverize him into mist.

Maybe I can block at least once...!

Even boosted physical strength wasn’t enough to match its size. Even with Aura, he couldn’t cleave through that tail in one strike.

He needed something more.

A warrior’s true nature bloomed at the edge of life and death. If he failed, the tail would reduce him to paste. However, El-Cid smiled, silently acknowledging the decision.

—Hm, I guess it is a good time to give it a go.

Leon closed his eyes. The air around him distorted. He reached past the laws of physics, summoning laws from a higher dimension to intervene.

“Psychokinesis,” Leon muttered with sharper focus than ever before and laid his will atop the blade.

He was going to cut through anything. He raised the sword, embodying the will to sever.

And then, the space before him split cleanly in two, turning pitch black. The tail struck a heartbeat later.

Upon the strike, a thunderous boom shook the canyon. There was no way a human would produce this kind of recoil. Most importantly, the drake’s tail didn’t smash down—it rebounded, scales scattering, blood spraying. It was proof that it had struck something incomprehensible.

Did it... work?

Blood trickled from Leon’s lips. He had blocked the tail with a single slash of space.

The backlash from manifesting psychokinesis had dealt him internal damage. It was his first successful use of Spatial Severance.

El-Cid praised him.

—Smart move. The plane of a spatial cut is basically an indestructible wall. If you don’t cut through the very fabric of space, there’s no way to break it.

I don’t think I can do it again...

He wasn’t even sure how he’d done it the first time. He’d acted in a trance, forgetting fear itself. Even if he were fully recovered, he wasn’t sure he could replicate it.

“Ugh... my head...”

The psychic exertion left him with a pounding headache and dizziness. Even with the Stigma of the Prayer, it was this bad. Without it, swinging that sword would’ve knocked him unconscious on the spot.

And then Leon blinked. The drake... wasn’t coming. Even if its tail had been repelled, its fangs and claws were still intact. So why wasn’t it pressing the attack?

Huh?

That’s when he felt the wetness. He touched the sides of his head, and blood came away on his fingers, leaking from both ears.

The shockwave from earlier had ruptured his eardrums. It finally made sense.

No wonder it’s been so quiet.

Even though the drake was thrashing right in front of him, he couldn’t hear a thing. Why the drake had gone berserk was a mystery. It was thrashing wildly, tearing into the canyon with such force that it seemed it might bring the entire landscape down.

The earth quaked and the clouds scattered. Leon, watching the maelstrom of violence, soon understood the reason behind its madness.

It had already lost one eye to him, but now the other had been destroyed too. It had been completely blinded.

“Karen, huh.”

She must’ve used the same technique she’d used to shatter its wingbone. The durability of a bone and an eyeball was worlds apart. She had clearly struck in the exact moment the drake was deflected. As expected of an assassin—it was a hateful yet lethal blow.

At that moment, the drake—writhing in pain and rage—spread its wings. With a single beat, it shot dozens of meters into the air. If it escaped, they wouldn’t catch it again.

Leon instinctively gathered his remaining strength, hoping to strike its tail at least—only to find his legs wouldn’t move. The shockwave from their earlier clash had traveled through the ground, up his legs, and temporarily paralyzed his lower body.

So much for a chase.

Even if he used Grand Chariot to bring the monster down again, the odds were less than half. He couldn’t kill it in a single strike. He’d need to cut it twice and finish with the ultimate move, the North Star Cross.

As Leon thought this, the drake circled overhead. Whether by luck or misfortune, it wasn’t fleeing. Blinded by pain and madness, it had resolved to hunt them to the very end. It burned with fury.

His eardrums—only just beginning to recover—quivered ever so slightly at the roar thundering from the distant sky. It was coming. It was going to dive straight down. The drake was blind, and Leon was deaf. And yet, their thoughts aligned with perfect synchronicity.

“Grrrrrrrr...”

The drake rose to fifteen kilometers in altitude and hovered, its ruined eyes fixed on where its target would be. It couldn’t see—but it knew that Leon hadn’t run. That he was waiting for this final clash. And so, baring its fangs with a monstrous, almost martial pride, the drake began its first and final terminal dive.

With its wings folded and gravity on its side, it surpassed the speed of sound with a loud boom!

“KRAAAAAAAAH!”

The force of the air tore open old wounds and flayed scales from its body. What had once been a sleek black beast was now a ragged, ruined meteor of flesh.

Still, it didn’t stop. It believed this single strike would decide everything, and Leon believed the same.

“That’s... pretty terrifying.”

It looked like a falling star of darkness. There were still several kilometers between them, but its pressure already pushed down on the earth. Its immense weight, combined with supersonic speed, was overwhelming.

And in its jaws, it charged a breath attack. A Dark Breath that, being immaterial, wouldn’t slow the beast down even if fired mid-dive.

Guess I’ve got no choice.

With his legs paralyzed, escape was impossible. Even if he tried to flee, the monster could just alter its angle slightly and still strike him down.

A head-on confrontation. A hero’s solution, through and through.

Leon summoned all the power he’d stored while cutting through monsters in the mountain depths. All four Stigmata surged with energy.

It was a bet with everything on the line. Whoever lost this clash would die.

The Holy Sword gleamed like the sun in the sky, and Leon—bloodied and dirtied—was transformed by divine light. The power of sanctity overflowed, cleansing the very air around him.

“I’m gonna cut you!”

With a powerful cry, Leon raised the sword vertically. Fortunately, the drake was falling in a straight line in a simple and direct trajectory.

Leon painted a cross in the air, centering it on the drake’s colossal frame. First, it was Dubhe: An upward vertical slash shot from the ground like a pillar of light.

Sensing it, the drake fired its charged breath. Light and darkness collided again. Two forces clashed, struggling to overpower the other.

This time, however, darkness had the edge. The drake’s momentum, mass, and magic propelled its breath forward. Unlike light, darkness lacked physical form. It pressed down and overwhelmed.

At this rate, the light of the Grand Chariot was going to fade. However, Leon wasn’t done.

The second strike, the horizontal slash Merak, arrived a beat later and completed the cross. A shining crucifix to confront the dark star falling from above. It was a scene straight out of the legends.

“Go!”

At Leon’s command, the cross shone brilliantly. The deluge of darkness split apart, revealing what lay behind. The North Star Cross had defeated the Dark Breath.

Even after cutting through the breath attack, the cross still had power to spare. It slammed into the drake’s torso, splitting its tough scales and sinewy muscles like paper. Blood and entrails exploded outward.

It was fatal. This wound was one even the drake’s regeneration could not mend. The light that severed several major arteries dimmed at last, but the creature’s death was now certain.

“Grrrk...!”

And yet, the drake didn’t stop.

“KRAAAAAAAAAAH!”

Fueling its final moments with raw rage, it accelerated even more, plunging straight down toward Leon. Even if it crashed into the earth, it didn’t care. Even if it died from the impact, it didn’t matter. It was a literal suicidal strike.

“So damn persistent...!”

Leon adjusted his grip on the sword, shifting into the Ox stance. He had to push past his limits, preparing to unleash a third consecutive Grand Chariot strike for the first time.

No... that won’t be enough.

The Grand Chariot consisted of three forms: The vertical Dubhe, the horizontal Merak, and the thrust, Alkaid. With Dubhe and Merak already used, all that remained was the final thrust.

Could a single thrust stop this? A monster weighing dozens of tons, falling at supersonic speed?

I need something with a physical body to stop that mass...

Maybe it was the strain of continuous psychokinesis and the Grand Chariot, but Leon’s mind was beginning to fog. And yet, in that haze, a flash of inspiration struck. Even El-Cid, reading his thoughts, was momentarily speechless.

—Hey... Are you serious?

Leon chuckled at the voice in his head and replied out loud, “Yeah. Dead serious.”

Seeing his unwavering resolve, El-Cid cursed explosively, —Goddammit. Then go ahead and try it, you insane brat!

“Have a good trip, master.”

Grinning at the insult, Leon tilted his upper body forward from the Ox stance, adjusting the angle ever so slightly. Anyone watching might have tilted their head in confusion. Why was a swordsman taking a lancer’s posture?

Gripping the sword like a spear, Leon twisted his torso with all his might. And then—

“Grand Chariot, Alkaid, Variant Technique: Sword Throw.”

He launched the Holy Sword with terrifying velocity. From ankles to knees, hips, shoulders, elbows, wrists—every joint twisted together into a unified, explosive throw.

It was a thrust turned into a throw, driven by momentum. He even channeled the last of his psychokinesis to stabilize the trajectory.

Like a thunderbolt, the Holy Sword shot upward toward the drake. Had it still had its eyes, the monster might’ve tilted its head just enough to dodge. Unfortunately for it, both its eyes had been destroyed.

The blazing lance of light soared in a perfect line and struck the monster right between the eyes.