Hard Carried by My Sword-Chapter 163

From the dawn of time, “night” had been branded as wicked and perilous, born from the fear that welled up in its darkness. Flowers blooming beneath the sun closed their mouths when night fell, and the cries of birds in the forest that sounded bright by day turned ominous in the gloom.

Many monsters awoke only after the sun sank, and sins that could not be committed beneath the light multiplied in the dark. Night, a force that should have been neutral, became tied to evil because of this.

And the attribute of night was terrifyingly strong. How could it not be?

It bore one half of the world’s great division: light and darkness. Unlike the sun and moon, where supremacy was clear despite their symmetry, day and night—light and darkness—were equals.

Exolaw wielders did not hide in darkness and wait for nightfall without reason. Exolaw itself was a law despised by the world, and only when the light waned did the world’s resistance loosen.

“Keugh?!”

Leon’s side was struck. He reacted instantly, accelerating on a diagonal and slashing away several snakes with the Holy Sword. The ringing hum of the golden light burned through the dark.

However, the brilliant glow lasted only a breath before scarabs swarmed like storm clouds, throwing themselves onto the flames and snuffing them out. Wasteful though it seemed, even incomplete Nephren-Ka was still a transcendent being. He could not be matched by sheer force.

El-Cid urged Leon on.

—No time to rest! You’ve got to cover four at once: two upper left, one upper right, one lower right!

“Got it. Eat this!”

Leon ground his teeth and detonated the Icarus Wing behind him, sweeping every direction clean. He couldn’t afford to use it often as it was too costly in strength, but nothing was better for breaking a surround.

He burst free of Apophis’s encirclement and growled, “Man, this is gonna go on the whole night, huh...”

The moment he peeled back one layer of darkness, the next wave came. Truly a case of misfortune piling upon misfortune.

As frost buries snow, so did moonlight and starlight vanish beneath the hideous maw of shadow. The wounds Apophis’s fangs had carved could only be held back by the Stigma of the Purifier, and scarabs disrupted light itself if left unchecked for even a heartbeat.

There should have been at least thirty kilometers between Leon and Nephren-Ka, yet the Black Pharaoh could reach him so easily.

“This is dangerous...”

Cold sweat drenched his nape. He was consuming energy faster than his stigmata restored it. One more hour of this chase, and he might not even have the strength to swing his sword clear.

Yes—if it had lasted one more hour.

“A pitiful little life... somehow managed to cling to survival...”

The chilling voice froze Leon’s spine, even though it had come from dozens of kilometers away. This was the power of a transcendent. If whole, this monster could have closed even hundreds of kilometers in a blink and crushed him like an insect.

Yet Leon found relief in the mockery.

“Phew. I can finally breathe.”

The boundary between light and dark dissolved, and the sky brightened. At dawn, the serpents writhed as if in pain, coiling back on themselves. The scarabs burrowed into the earth, fleeing the light. Such was the limit of creatures born from exolaw.

Nephren-Ka himself had been cursed by the sun and could not face its light; how could his minions resist?

After nearly ten hours, Leon released the Icarus Wing and landed atop a high hill.

“Ugh!”

Perhaps from the tension finally being relieved, his legs gave out, and he slumped onto the rounded trunk.

—Well done. You’ve lasted the day.

“You’re telling me I really have to do this for three more nights?”

It was his own choice, but only after enduring one night did Leon realize how brutal it truly was. The price of striking the pride of Nephren-Ka, the Black Pharaoh, was dreadful indeed.

Without the Holy Sword, the Stigmata, or the newly awakened Icarus Wing, he would already have perished.

Even with the Holy Sword—the ultimate bane of exolaw—the best he could do was barely survive. If the sword could smash a hundredfold of exolaw with but one stroke, what of a thousand? Ten thousand?

The Holy Sword could never be marred, not even by Nephren-Ka’s true self. However, the hand wielding it was still mortal. Nephren-Ka’s exolaw was like a tidal wave. It might not topple a mountain, but everything clinging to its side would be scoured away.

—Don’t relax too much just because the sun’s up. He can’t keep you in check like at midnight, but he can still move.

“Yeah, I figured. Guess I should get moving.”

Barely thirty minutes after collapsing, Leon spread his Icarus Wing again. Mind-body was a form forged through sheer will. Even without flesh, its fatigue gnawed at him, draining his spirit rather than muscle. If not for the Stigma of the Prayer strengthening his mind manyfold, he could never have flown all night.

There was no need to break the sound barrier like earlier. By day, his enemy’s speed lagged far behind. He spread his wings just fast enough to keep distance while still resting, just beneath the pace of recovery. He shot forward without a sound.

“Hm?”

The flight felt smoother and faster than yesterday. Only then did Leon notice the change and tilt his head.

—It’d be stranger to not improve after a night of being hunted by a transcendent. You’ve honed your mind-body, and Stigmata often grows with use.

The sun’s light also played its part. The Stigma of the Guardian and Purifier, fully awakened, rapidly mended his battered body. The venom of Apophis’s fangs, which should have tormented even a Master for weeks, burned away beneath the holy flame.

Not that it matters—I’ll just get bitten to pieces again tonight.

Leon gave a wry chuckle, brushing his hand across the Holy Sword’s hilt. El-Cid was the one who had drawn this trial upon him, but he was also the one who had given him the strength to endure it.

It had always been this way. In Blaine. In Jugend. His teachings and bonds had always lit the road ahead.

But this time, I’ll carve my own path.

He couldn’t lean on El-Cid forever—as a Hero, as a disciple of Holy King Rodrick.

His master had already overextended himself too often because Leon had fallen short. This time, he would prove his growth. As the sky grew brighter, Leon’s eyes blazed while he felt the writhing presence behind him.

Three days.

Even with the sun, he would never fully recover. Tonight would be harder than the last, and tomorrow night harder still. 𝙛𝓻𝒆𝓮𝒘𝙚𝙗𝒏𝙤𝙫𝓮𝒍.𝓬𝒐𝙢

Reason whispered coldly that if he survived two nights, it would already be a miracle.

“Hah!”

Leon laughed at himself and pushed harder. How many times had he already broken past his limits? Making the impossible possible was the Hero’s role. Three days should be nothing.

Leaving two blazing trails behind, Leon flew on. Past noon, into dusk, until night came once more.

***

On the first night, even in his half-crazed state, Nephren-Ka did not rush. Rather than waste power, he tightened his grip, holding Leon by the ankle and closing the distance.

The gap gained throughout the day shrank in less than three hours, narrowing to twenty kilometers. That was when the real danger began.

The closer he came, the stronger his power grew, swallowing even the moonlight above. The pull cut Leon’s recovery from the Stigma of the Guardian in half.

“The moon...? How is that even possible...?”

El-Cid explained, —Think of it as an erosion. Exolaw pulls laws from other dimensions. At a transcendent’s level, like this guy, one can repaint the world itself even if only for a moment. Looks like he’s figured out the source of your strength.

Fortunately, the first night ended there. The sudden drop in recovery had been terrifying, but dawn broke before Nephren-Ka’s suppression deepened.

Unfortunately, for Leon, the real hell came on the second night.

“This crazy bastard?”

The moment the sun sank, a blasphemous darkness smothered the sky. The moon and stars winked out, and the Stigma of the Guardian stopped altogether. Leon’s recovery was sealed at the root.

The darkness swelled thicker, fiercer, while his strength waned. His flight slowed, the gap closing faster than the night before.

Now, only ten kilometers separated them.

—Leon!

“Ah, damn.”

Leon’s eyes flew open. He was plummeting toward the ground. His wings burst out at the last second, dragging him up as dust billowed. A second later and he would have struck the earth.

His body and mind were spent to the limit, and his Icarus Wing had flickered out. The mind-body was no gift without cost. If his spirit collapsed, its form wavered. If shattered, it could not be summoned again for some time.

“Just... one more day...” Leon muttered, trying to steady himself. However, a thought he had buried rose to the surface.

Three days had been the best-case estimate. That was only if everyone fulfilled their role flawlessly, without a single discord. If even the smallest piece went astray, it could take four days, a week, even.

And if that happened, Leon would surely die.

Three... days...

In his exhausted mind, doubt and malice wormed their way in.

It wasn’t too late. If he fled toward the nomads’ evacuation route, Nephren-Ka would feast on them, and Leon could escape.

The poisonous thought crawled upward when Leon slammed his fist into his temple, forcing his dazed eyes open, and roared.

“Get out!”

“Ke...kehehe... foolish insect...”

The malice of Nephren-Ka that had seeped into him from last night’s chase was cast out. Normally, he would have shaken it off instantly, but Leon was greatly weakened. Without shocking himself back to his senses, he could not endure.

Clinging to his faith in his comrades and the pride he had chosen to bear, he flew with all he had.

One more minute. One more meter.

He flew, again and again, until the third night fell.

“Uaaaaghhhh!”

He roared, coughing blood, as he swung his blade in a golden brilliance. The strike of the Grand Chariot tore apart the darkness before him, scattering death itself.

Even Nephren-Ka’s true body would take a mortal wound from the Holy Sword. With that saving grace, Leon forced his way through and soared.

“Insect...”

The sky collapsed in mockery. No—it was more like an illusion.

A ceiling of darkness sank like gravity, crushing all beneath it. Stone split and powdered under the pressure with enough force to shred a man to rags.

“This is nothing...!”

Leon braced with the Icarus Wing, swallowing blood that rose in his throat. His joints creaked and cracked, but he did not yield. His eyes burned gold as he shoved back the dark.

“Nothing... at all!”

He thrust a step forward with the Holy Sword, and even the abyss faltered before it. The gap in power was undeniable. The Holy Sword stood absolute, but Leon, wielding it, was broken, bleeding into shallow pools that soaked his boots. Yet—

“You think this could stop me?!”

He took a step that he could not surrender without losing his life, blazing brighter still, tearing open the path ahead. The flames of the Icarus Wing flared into platinum.

The Holy Flame had merged with the mind-body.

Unaware of what he had achieved, Leon simply pressed forward, step by step. Not even exolaw could block him, wreathed in those platinum flames.

One step, another step, and another.

“Kyaaaaah!”

At last, an avatar of Apophis lost its nerve and shrieked. Fear and death were for prey, not itself. It could not forgive itself for retreating before a mere human. Rage crushed instinct, and it bared its fangs.

Leon met it head-on.

“Piss off!”

His blade split the serpent’s skull in half. The spawn was carved cleanly apart, and Leon stepped forward again.

He had long since lost all sense of direction. He wasn’t sure if the path ahead was even correct. But he remembered one thing: he had to keep walking.

“Just... one more day... just until morning...”

He believed. Believed in the people he had met, the bonds he had forged, the comrades he had stood beside. Had he doubted even once, he would have stopped. His mind, driven to the brink, was like a taut cord ready to snap at the slightest flaw. Even the venom Nephren-Ka tried to plant in him had been just that: doubt.

Leon, however, refused to give in. Even if he died, he chose not to surrender his faith.

“Pitiful, foolish insect.”

Mocking even that noble resolve, Nephren-Ka finally reached Leon’s back, hand closing in. At his gesture, swarms of scarabs shaped themselves into a vast claw of a monster that devoured life.

Even Holy Flame could be smothered by such numbers. Burn through a hundred, a thousand beetles—it didn’t matter. With ten thousand, a hundred thousand, the end was inevitable.

“Still, you’ve lasted well. I’ll grant you that,” Nephren-Ka muttered.

And indeed, the eastern sky was lightening. Just an hour more—half an hour—and Nephren-Ka would have withdrawn, leaving the next battle for another day.

“Warrior of cursed sunlight, I grant you the honor of serving as my vassal.”

Death pressed against light. As scarabs burned, the platinum fire dwindled, and Leon’s blinded, staggering steps slowed. The lamp of his life flickered in the storm.

“Hm...?”

Then, Nephren-Ka paused, the crushing claw halting. A transcendent’s intuition was close to prophecy. And in the next heartbeat, a voice came from the distant sky.

“... dare you. How dare you!”

A silver-white meteor fell.

“Filthy heretic scum, how dare youuu!!”

Her eyes overturned in wrath, Elahan descended, clutching a golden hammer. Even Nephren-Ka flinched.

—An avatar...?!

It was a power no human should wield, a storm of power amplified by two of the strongest weapons of the Holy Church.

And with it, she invoked the greatest and rarest miracle of the Holy Law—one said to require no less than six cardinals together, cast only a handful of times in history.

“Divine Judgment!”

From the Holy Iron Breaker she raised aloft, a shaft of light surged skyward, piercing the clouds. With that as a beginning, the sky opened as the radiance touched the heavens.

“Impossible...! To summon Judgment alone?”

Whether Nephren-Ka was shocked or not, Elahan had already chosen her mark. Gripping the Holy Iron Breaker with both hands, she poured in all the force of her meteoric descent.

“CONDENATIOOOOON!!!”

The golden hammer roared from her grasp, the Holy Iron Breaker crashing straight into Nephren-Ka’s face.