The Sword Emperor Transmigrates-Chapter 288

The battle between the radiant giant, Adam Kadmon, and the one-eyed giant, Balor, was primal in its brutality. However, the sheer scale of their physical power was so overwhelming that their clashes unleashed aftershocks akin to natural disasters.

Each exchange of punches and kicks cratered the earth, only for the ground to be shattered and reshaped again in an unending cycle. It was a battle that shook the heavens and the earth.

Under normal circumstances, even Adam Kadmon, who had manifested through the sacrifice of Simon Magus and Ein-Sof, should have struggled against an existence as overwhelming as the Outer God Balor. Even with his summoning interrupted and only a fraction of his true essence projected into reality, Balor was a notorious nightmare among divine beings, a monarch of its kind.

Yet the battle seemed evenly matched despite the apparent disparity in power. The reason lay in the fundamental nature of Adam Kadmon.

—■■■■■■■!!

Even after being pummeled hundreds of times by fists wreathed in the flames of death, Adam Kadmon retaliated as if nothing had happened.

Frustrated, Balor let out an ear-splitting roar. The air trembled.

Cursed energy radiated from its bellow, washing over Adam Kadmon, but the giant remained unfazed. No, it did more than simply endure. With a single punch, Adam Kadmon forced Balor’s gaping jaw shut.

Crack!

The force of the blow snapped Balor’s neck backward. A fatal injury for most creatures, but Balor, a being of the Fomorians, was a monster beyond mortal comprehension, one that was totally monstrous in another way compared to the jotuns.

Even with his head grotesquely twisted, his gaze snapped toward Adam Kadmon, his single eye glowing with terrifying power.

The Evil Eye of Balor—a divine authority that annihilates everything within its sight.

BOOM!

Yet again, Adam Kadmon defied that absolute power. It stepped forward and smashed both fists into Balor’s face. The Fomorian monarch reeled backward, his eyelid involuntarily snapping shut as he let out a guttural growl.

A being worshipped as invincible had just been denied his own authority—repeatedly. The sheer violation of his divinity was a wound unto himself. But this did not mean Adam Kadmon was superior.

A deep, resonant hum filled the air. Adam Kadmon was the embodiment of perfection born from Simon Magus’s lifelong pursuit of magic, and once fully formed, it rejected all external conceptual interference.

No foreign power could affect it. No influence could alter it. It was an absolute existence untouched by external forces.

Whether it was the physical force capable of obliterating entire planets or the annihilating power of Balor’s Evil Eye, none of it mattered. Adam Kadmon neutralized it all. Its true nature was that of a fully autonomous magical lifeform—one that remained invincible until its fuel was completely depleted.

It lacked the raw power to defeat Balor, as it did not have enough power output, but by dedicating itself to attrition and delay, it could hold the one-eyed giant back for at least an hour.

—...■■■■.

Balor began to grasp the problem. Even if he tried to ignore Adam Kadmon, the radiant giant’s relentless attacks made that impossible. The blows surpassed the speed of light. Each strike was a mere scratch, but left ignored, those scratches would soon become wounds—and those wounds would lead to fatal injuries.

—A.

Adam Kadmon understood its creator’s intent. It was not summoned to achieve victory. It was summoned to hold the line and completely block Balor.

Even if it negated Balor’s strength and authority, it could never overpower the monstrous being. Balor would simply endure until Adam Kadmon reached its limit, laughing at its futile resistance.

But Adam Kadmon did not need to win. Beyond this battlefield, Leonard was fighting Crom Dubh. If Leonard could cut down Crom Dubh, the dimensional gate would collapse, and the Outer Gods would be cast out.

Victory was unnecessary. There was no need for impatience. As long as it performed its role perfectly, all would be well. Adam Kadmon, crafted as the “Perfect Human,” sought to maintain its combat logic with a mind as cold as ice. Fulfilling the mission assigned to it—that alone was enough.

—A...

With its flawless perception that allowed it to observe the entire battlefield without distraction, Adam Kadmon was the first to notice something critical.

The battle that would decide the fate of the allied forces—Leonard versus Crom Dubh—was beginning to tilt.

The moment Crom Dubh returned to the Underworld, it had started regaining its true strength and divinity. Meanwhile, Leonard, who had burned everything to face it, was beginning to falter.

That was why Leonard had gone all-in from the moment the battle began. But even in his peak state, even with his Qi of the Four Symbols fully unleashed, Leonard still lacked the power to kill Crom Dubh.

—A.

Someone had to help him. If Leonard fell, nothing else would matter. Even if they won every other battle, it would be meaningless. The moment Crom Dubh was fully revived, the Underworld itself would become its stomach.

There was no one left to send as reinforcements. The colossal Talos had fallen into the abyss alongside Hydra. The Grand Magi had exhausted their trump cards and were now of little help. Even the Archduke of Sword Declan and Ancestor Cardenas were struggling to hold their ground.

—...A.

It was a grim truth, but one Adam Kadmon could not ignore. It was the only remaining force capable of intervening in Leonard’s battle.

But Balor still stood before it. If Adam Kadmon left, Balor would slaughter everything in its sight. Even with Adam Kadmon aiding Leonard, there was no guarantee that Crom Dubh could be defeated immediately.

It had to stop Balor here, but at the same time, it had to support Leonard in his fight against Crom Dubh. It had to accomplish both impossible tasks at once. A paradox. An unsolvable equation.

For the first time in its existence, the perfect magical lifeform hesitated.

———————————!!

A brilliant, golden radiance erupted from the distance. The blinding streak of light, Ancestor Cardenas’ final technique, carved its way through reality itself. It ignited something within Adam Kadmon.

No, it was more than that. It was not just Ancestor Cardenas’ final strike. It was Drake’s sacrifice to bring down Hydra with him. It was Antonius’s choice to choose to die to save his comrades.

It was the countless heroes who had stood their ground, accepting their fate with no regrets.

—A...!

Though Adam Kadmon was an entity formed from Simon Magus and Ein-Sof, neither their personalities nor egos remained to exert any influence. After all, for a “perfect being,” the sentiments of the imperfect were meaningless.

If something within it stirred in response to the dazzling sight before it—if it felt inspiration—then it could only mean one thing. That sensation was purely Adam Kadmon’s.

An adventurer who burned through the last of his life to challenge adversity.

A sage who met the end with quiet resolve, entrusting his will to the future.

A swordmaster who embraced his final moments, confident in the victory of his successors.

Adam Kadmon could not tear its eyes away from the backs of these figures who stood so far from the concept of perfection. Perfection, after all, was completion. A state in which one was neither taught nor influenced by others.

—...

For the first time, Adam Kadmon denied his own fundamental principle. If existing as the “Perfect Human” meant accepting defeat without resistance and being indifferent to the struggles of heroes, then perfection was not something worth upholding.

—A!

In that instant, Adam Kadmon’s form wavered, rippling with instability as a single tremor coursed through it. The inviolability granted by its perfection had been lifted.

No longer in an invincible state, it could not defeat Balor. In fact, it would not even be able to hold out for more than a few minutes. Despite knowing this, it had chosen to abandon its own perfection.

Perfection was a state beyond improvement. But by embracing imperfection, new possibilities could be obtained.

This was not regression. To stand still with a head held high in unshaken dignity was not what it meant to be human. To take even a single step forward through the mire—that was the essence of humanity.

At this moment, the magical lifeform reached the greatest realization of all. More than avoiding defeat against Balor, what mattered most was creating an opening—an opportunity—for Leonard to emerge victorious.

—■■, ■■■■!!

Sensing a valid target, Balor attacked with even greater ferocity, mercilessly tearing through Adam Kadmon. Yet, separate from its lost invincibility, the concept of urgency did not exist for it.

—A.

The radiant body had to change faster than it could be destroyed. Adam Kadmon, the greatest magical lifeform in history, had inherited all the memories Simon Magus had accumulated. It accessed the information about Leonard and found the optimal answer.

The Cardenas family was directly connected to the bloodline of the Gold Dragon. What Leonard, seated on the Divine Throne, was meant to embrace lay hidden in the essence of the very race and species that had loved this bloodline’s beginning.

Shiiiiing—!!

A brilliant light erupted from Adam Kadmon, whose body was shattered by Balor’s attack. It was the price of forsaking his once-perfect form, a form that could stand against even the highest Outer Gods.

Momentarily sensing a threat in this unexpected transformation, Balor instinctively stepped back. His hesitation worked in Adam Kadmon’s favor. The evolution that had brought it down from a perfect being to an imperfect one concluded in an instant.

Had anyone been there to witness it, they might have spoken of a species that had vanished a thousand years ago.

—...■■■?

Only Balor recognized the familiarity of this form and hesitated, puzzled. Unfolding its wings, Adam Kadmon examined itself.

A Radiant Dragon. From the horns that crowned its head to the sleek, elongated tail, every part of its body was formed of pure light—flawless, magnificent, and resplendent. It had perfectly recreated the forgotten form of Ancestor Cardenas.

Without a moment’s pause, Adam Kadmon launched itself at Balor.

————————!!

It happened in an instant. Adam Kadmon surged forward and burned the entirety of its existence as fuel to reach a level, even if only for the briefest of moments, where its attack could deal a fatal blow to Balor’s physical body.

There was only one target to aim for: the one-eyed giant’s ultimate weapon and most fatal weakness. A single beam of light streaked forward, aimed directly at the eye. Moving at a speed that warped space and time itself, the suicide attack was unavoidable and unstoppable.

Fwoooosh—!!

Adam Kadmon pierced straight through Balor’s forehead, drilling through the eye and emerging from the back of his skull before soaring skyward. For less than a fraction of a second, the Radiant Dragon had surpassed the limits of existence itself. But now, from the tips of its limbs, it was beginning to collapse.

The Radiant Dragon would not even last long enough to touch the ceiling of the Underworld before vanishing. Looking downward with its disintegrating form, Adam Kadmon locked eyes with Leonard, who was gazing up at it.

That was enough. Adam Kadmon condensed all the knowledge stored within itself into a single stream of light and passed it on without omission. It had fulfilled the duty that allowed short-lived humans to spread across the world—the act of inheritance.

Like the eternal fame of the adventurer Drake, like the lives saved by the Grand Magus Antonius, like the sword strikes left behind by Ancestor Cardenas and Declan.

—...A!

Not as the “Perfect Human,” but as a better “Imperfect Human,” Adam Kadmon completed its role. And with that, it scattered into particles of light.

It had not succeeded in killing Balor completely, but with the giant’s eye rendered useless, the battle was now winnable. Leaving unfinished work to one’s comrades and successors—entrusting them with the fight—was a human virtue.

The ultimate magical lifeform’s final act was to live and die as a human to the very end.

* * *

Craaaash—!!

Leonard’s face grew paler as he unleashed a storm of blades imbued with White Tiger’s Qi and tore through the darkness in front of him. Despite drawing upon all the power he could muster—without having fully reached the deification of the Yellow Dragon—he still could not outpace Crom Dubh’s regeneration.

The explosive force of the Vermillion Bird’s Qi, the destructive power of the White Tiger’s Qi, the defensive might of the Black Tortoise’s Qi, and the piercing strength of the Azure Dragon’s Qi.

Even with Hades whittling away at his own existence to hold Crom Dubh back, the darkness continued to encroach at a faster rate. As the entity’s sheer scale expanded, the environment itself began to shift from the Underworld to the Demonic Realm.

Perhaps due to their connection to the Outer Gods, the outer-dimensional forces clashing with the allied forces were growing stronger.

“Ghh... Aaaargh!!”

With a battle cry, Leonard forced back the encroaching darkness, his sword erupting in a five-colored radiance. He had already exhausted the Qi of the Four Symbols, and now, even the incomplete form of the Yellow Dragon’s Qi was being consumed.

With a single sweeping slash of the One Origin Five Elements Divine Sword, Leonard struck at Crom Dubh. From beyond the darkness, something twisted violently. Tar-like blood and foul-smelling ichor spewed forth.

The wound was too deep to be called a scratch, yet also too shallow to be called a fatal injury. That was all.

—We’re doomed.

Hades, whose divinity had been shaved away so much that his form had turned semi-transparent, let out a long sigh. He had been curious about the strength of the monster born from the God-Slaying War, but he had never imagined it would be this absurd.

If Crom Dubh were to fully ascend as a god, not even Hades at his peak could defeat him. For a mere mortal who had yet to complete his own divinity, this foe was far too overwhelming.

“I-I’m not... done... yet...!”

Leonard, desperately clawing at the last reserves of his energy in his dantian, suddenly coughed up blood from his eyes, nose, and ears, his seven orifices overflowing with crimson.

“Ghh...! Gaaaah...!”

For a Demigod Tier martial artist to lose control over his own blood to the point of bleeding from all seven orifices—his condition was already at its worst.

Had he possessed any remaining energy, he would have either succumbed to energy deviation or had his meridians completely ruptured. Only his sheer willpower kept him moving, preventing his internal energy from rebounding against him.

Crack!

The armament formed from the Qi of the Four Symbols wavered, then shattered into countless fragments, a clear sign that he no longer had the strength to wield the One Origin Five Elements Divine Sword. Even so, his grip on his sword did not loosen.

His legs trembled with spasms, but he forced himself to stand. Step by step, he advanced toward Crom Dubh, determined to face him head-on.

Even divine beings would have no choice but to admire such unyielding spirit. Watching his back, Hades felt as if he were witnessing a hero from an era long past. Uncountable warriors had fallen throughout history, unable to see their aspirations fulfilled.

Even if the battle ended in failure and the world fell into ruin, there would be no disgrace in such an ending.

—...Hm?

A golden light suddenly surged from somewhere on the battlefield, slashing across the ceiling of the Underworld like a blade.

———————————!!

Leonard’s eyes widened.

It was Victoria, Ancestor Cardenas’ ultimate technique. As a martial artist, Leonard had witnessed Deification Tier sword techniques before. Seeing Victoria was enough to grant him a crucial spark of insight, yet it was not enough to push him beyond the wall of mortality.

To surpass the threshold to the Deification Tier, one needed to attain a fundamental conceptual completion.

————————!!

A second light erupted—this time, taking the form of a Gold Dragon soaring high above. It gazed down upon the battlefield.

Its eyes locked onto Leonard’s.

“——Ah.”

The full breadth of the knowledge Adam Kadmon entrusted to him surged into Leonard’s battered mind and body.