Return of The Martial King

Chapter 238

He gritted his teeth, realizing that continuing like this would lead nowhere.  

‘Is there only one option left now...?’  

No matter how thick the armor covering the entire body was, or how its seams were blocked with unknown materials, one weakness remained.  

‘The eye section of that helmet.’  

Even the relic of an ancient age couldn't avoid leaving that part exposed.  

Dodging the light of Eldril, Russ concentrated his mind.  

Attacking the eyes was no simple task. Humans instinctively avoided exposing their vital points. Moreover, Eusus was no novice in combat; he was a trained knight. Even with Russ's superior skills, if he launched an obvious attack, Eusus would block it effortlessly.  

There was only one way: a strike from outside Eusus's perception, an attack he couldn’t see coming.  

And Russ had just the technique for it.  

‘Phantom Blade...’  

Russ's ultimate technique that crossed space itself. If it succeeded, it was impossible to avoid. Even Eusus would have no way to evade or defend against it.  

Yes, if it succeeded.  

‘Damn, the success rate is too low. I kept it as a last resort for a reason...’  

But failure would mean the end. The delay after using it would leave him completely exposed to Eldril's light.  

So far, even when Phantom Blade failed, the side effect of separating its presence from its physical manifestation allowed him some gains. But Eusus wasn’t an Aura User, so he had no sensory perception. He only relied on his eyes to read attacks. For him, the separation of presence and form would be meaningless.  

It had to succeed. Flawlessly.  

Russ swallowed hard. Carefully, he channeled his entire aura through his body.  

Woom, woom, woom.  

The blue Blade Aura began to hum faintly, vibrating softly.  

“What’s this, Russ? Have you given up completely now?”  

Eusus's attacks grew more aggressive. Russ continued dodging, waiting for his chance.  

The moment a flash of light flew straight toward him, Russ hurled his body into the air, releasing a slashing attack.  

“Phantom Blade!”  

The Blade Aura leapt across space, striking directly at Eusus's eyes.  

‘It’s a success!’  

But the smile vanished immediately.  

Tang!  

The aura that crossed space was blocked just before reaching Eusus's eyes. Those weren't open eyeholes after all. Russ hadn’t realized it, but they were firmly covered with a transparent material, hard as crystal.  

“What are you trying to do?”  

Eusus asked incredulously as he fired Eldril's light at Russ.  

Eusus, who wasn’t an Aura User, had no way of realizing the magnitude of what Russ had just attempted. Naturally, he neither hesitated in surprise nor missed an opportunity to attack. Ignorance was bliss, perhaps?  

Flash!  

The blinding light filled Russ's vision. Having exhausted himself on Phantom Blade, evasion was no longer an option. He redirected all his remaining aura to defense and twisted his body with all his might.  

‘I must avoid a direct hit!’  

Boom!  

Eldril’s light engulfed Russ entirely, exploding in a dazzling display.  

“Ughhhh!”  

*         *         *

Russ screamed as his body was flung back over ten meters. However, he didn’t fall. Twisting mid-air like a spinning top, he barely managed to land on the ground.  

Bloodied and battered, Russ lifted his head. His body seemed ready to collapse at any moment, but the light in his eyes remained unyielding.  

Eusus muttered in shock.  

“Unbelievable... You’re still standing after taking that?”  

Russ let out a weak chuckle.  

“Well, lucky for me, I had a master of shock dispersal nearby.”  

The evasive technique he’d just used was the same one the Queen of Ice, Iniya, had demonstrated in her fight against Kalken. He had carefully observed it back then, not realizing it would one day save his life.  

‘Although, calling it “saved” might be premature…’  

The power of Eldril’s light was indeed overwhelming. While he had avoided a direct hit, the price was steep—his entire aura defense had been obliterated.  

His right arm and leg were partially paralyzed, making movement difficult. Though he tried to appear composed, the spinning in his vision made him want to pass out immediately.  

But if he collapsed now, he’d only become a helpless target for Eusus, who was bearing down on him, grinding his teeth with murderous intent.  

“You survived Eldril’s light? You’re truly someone who must not be allowed to live, Russ.”  

Seeing Eusus’s face filled with hatred and rage, Russ grew desperate.  

‘A technique, a technique… isn’t there something? Anything to get me out of this mess?’  

Images of every Aura User he had encountered flashed through Russ's mind like a montage.  

Repenhardt, Kadamyte, Kalken, Stalla...  

All of them were formidable warriors and masters of Aura.  

But none of their techniques were useful in his current situation.  

A growing sense of urgency dried Russ’s mouth. Staring at the golden god of death approaching him, Russ muttered nervously to himself.  

“Ugh, useless bunch...”  

It was an audacious complaint, given how much he had gleefully stolen and utilized techniques from others. Perhaps Eusus’s accusations of ingratitude weren’t entirely baseless after all.  

Eusus steadily closed the distance.  

Eldril was raised high above his head.  

“Die, you wretched fool!”  

Intense magical energy coalesced at the tip of the greatsword, radiating light. The spreading glow pierced through the dust like moonlight cutting through a foggy mist.  

Yes, like moonlight in the mist...  

‘...Mist?’  

Suddenly, Russ’s eyes grew hazy, his vision blurring.  

Time seemed to slow. The entire world around him moved sluggishly, as if flowing in slow motion.  

And then, a vision surfaced in his mind.  

The spreading white mist of icy coldness, freezing everything in its path—Iniya’s unfathomable Aura skill.  

‘Breath of the Northern Sea...’  

Russ, who could understand most techniques after observing them a few times, found this particular skill utterly incomprehensible. While the cold itself could be attributed to elemental magic, the way she created and scattered countless Aura particles over a vast area was a mystery he couldn’t solve, no matter how much he practiced.  

Out of desperation, he had even swallowed his pride and directly asked Iniya about it.  

Elves, unlike dwarves or orcs, typically didn’t pass down their esoteric arts to outsiders. However, perhaps because she wanted to impress Repenhardt, Iniya had graciously taught him.  

The only problem was...  

‘How do you do it? Hmm, well, water can become ice or turn into invisible vapor, right? Everything in existence changes. You must embody that transformation and dissolve it into your life. Then, you project that image through your Aura.’  

She thought she was explaining it kindly, but to anyone else, it sounded like nonsense of the highest order.  

Russ understood, in a way. If someone asked him to explain how to use Phantom Blade, he wouldn’t know how to articulate it either. Enlightenment wasn’t something that could be conveyed through words.  

Afterward, he had tried to replicate it whenever he had the time.  

But no matter how hard he tried, splitting Aura into particles was impossible. The best he could do was break his Aura down to the size of grains of sand. Making it finer than that was out of the question. And even then, controlling it was limited to just six or seven grains at most.  

He couldn’t comprehend it.  

Turning Aura into particles so small they were invisible was an unimaginable feat. Yet creating countless particles and controlling them to the point of forming mist? Even a god couldn’t do such a thing.  

But Iniya was undoubtedly doing the impossible.  

It defied reason.  

‘Yes, it doesn’t make sense. Breath of the Northern Sea is...’  

A sudden curiosity stirred within him.  

Why was the technique called “Breath”? If it were truly about manipulating Aura particles, names like “Dust” or “Powder” would seem more fitting. Even in appearance, “Mist” would be more appropriate.  

“Ah!”  

Suddenly, the blockage in his mind crumbled, and an overwhelming cascade of insight rushed in, sweeping away the haze clouding his understanding.  

He understood.  

Iniya wasn’t controlling each particle individually. Not her, nor anyone else, could accomplish such an impossible feat.  

‘Of course, she wasn’t breaking her Aura into particles.’  

The technique’s name was Breath of the Northern Sea.  

Every living being breathes. They inhale the air essential for life and exhale what they no longer need. The air taken in and the air released back into the world are entirely different, transformed through the act of breathing.  

To inhale and exhale breath is to change a portion of the world’s air into something entirely different.  

‘She’s transforming the phenomenon of Aura into the phenomenon of mist!’  

Realizing this, Russ shuddered in awe.  

Iniya’s Aura was a form of material transformation!  

She wasn’t controlling each particle one by one. Instead, she was converting the life energy, the essence of Aura, into the form of mist. That massive body of mist, she then molded and manipulated, like a sculptor shaping clay. This was the secret behind her mastery of the icy mist.  

The three elements impossible to control through magic: time, space, and matter.  

Iniya, using only the power of Aura, had managed to realize part of material transformation one of the three forbidden domains.  

‘Ah, so that’s it...’  

Russ’s intuition ignited like lightning, leaping across the synapses of his mind, illuminating his understanding.  

He bypassed the steps, arriving directly at the answer.  

Russ himself had also achieved mastery over part of one of the three domains: spatial manipulation, using only Aura. Now that he had gained enlightenment, he understood what he had been lacking all along.  

He had been a fool.  

Phantom Blade?  

The name itself had been a mistake from the start.  

Naming a technique was meant to crystallize its image, to clarify its intent. As a technique was honed, the image solidified, and its power grew stronger.  

But was it truly an illusory blade Russ had sought?  

No.  

What he desired wasn’t a blade that deceived like a mirage, but one that truly toyed with space itself.  

‘What I sought was...’  

A blade that exists everywhere and nowhere, at once...  

‘A void blade as empty as the vacuum itself.’  

The blade of the heart: one that cuts when desired and passes through like light when not.

Russ adjusted his grip on the sword and gazed at Eusus standing before him.  

“Die, you wretched fool!”  

Though his thoughts had been long, only a fleeting moment had passed. Eusus’s sword descended, its swing shaking with immense magical power.  

Russ smiled faintly and raised his sword to meet the attack.  

In his mind, the imagery crystallized into words, and the name of a technique he had never consciously thought of naturally escaped his lips.  

“Void Blade, Horizon...”  

Yes, speaking it aloud made it clear.  

This was it.  

This was the right name.  

The distant horizon—visible yet nonexistent. No matter how much one approaches, another unreachable horizon always lies beyond.  

Leaping beyond the void, he wielded the empty blade to cut through the existence of the nonexistent.  

Flash!  

Russ’s Blade Aura disappeared. At the same moment, a streak of light flashed across Eusus’s knees. Blood poured from within the thick armor.  

A pained scream faintly echoed from within the helmet.  

“...Kraaahhh!”  

*         *         *

Eusus lay collapsed in a pool of blood.  

‘What... what just happened...?’  

Groaning in agony, he struggled to keep his fading consciousness intact.  

He couldn’t comprehend the situation.  

This armor was a supreme relic, capable of nullifying all of Russ’s attacks. Even now, the golden armor encasing his legs showed not a single scratch.  

But his body beneath the armor was different. Though he couldn’t see it, he could feel the searing pain—it was undeniable proof that everything below his knees had been cleanly severed.  

It made no sense.  

Yes, there were martial techniques capable of penetrating armor to deal internal damage. Breaking the middle of a stack of bricks while leaving the top and bottom intact was an example. Repenhardt’s Zero Impact was a technique based on such principles.  

Eldril Gigantus, Eusus’s new armor, was specifically designed to counter such techniques by dispersing all impact across the armor itself. Without this feature, no matter how sturdy the armor was, Eusus wouldn’t have survived this long unscathed.  

But Russ’s attack was fundamentally different. This strike had bypassed the armor entirely, severing Eusus’s body while ignoring the armor’s protection!  

‘How... how is this even possible...?’  

Eusus screamed repeatedly, writhing in agony as pain radiated from below his knees.  

“Ughhhhh!”  

Russ, with half-lidded eyes, gazed at the fallen Eusus. Though his eyes were fixed on his opponent, his mind remained absorbed in the afterglow of his enlightenment.  

‘So this is what it truly means to transcend space…’  

He could feel it.  

His sword, his Blade Aura, it truly transcended space itself.  

It wasn’t like the Phantom Blade, which simply shifted positions across space. This cut precisely the part he willed, ignoring all barriers.  

No matter how strong the armor protecting the body, it was meaningless before this sword. It bypassed the armor entirely, slicing only the body within. This time, he had severed Eusus’s legs entirely, but if he willed it, he could leave the muscles and tendons untouched, slicing through just the bones.  

Russ shuddered at his own realization.  

‘If I can fully master this sword…’  

His blade would become an unstoppable force, a lethal weapon that no one in the world could evade!  

A grin stretched across Russ’s face, his lips curling upward. His eyes glimmered with arrogance.  

“A sword that transcends space, who could possibly stand against it? If I swing it, it’s guaranteed to hit! Hahaha! HAHAHAHAHA!”