Hard Carried by My Sword-Chapter 155

From sky to earth, from earth to sky.

Fangs bared from both sides as starlight crashed down and starlight soared up. The power of this decisive clash could render even an S-rank monster into minced flesh in one blow.

Meteoric Tiger Kick and Three Stars in Heaven’s Jar collided in the heavens, and blinding light roared outward. Those who looked up instinctively covered their faces with both hands. Only the chieftains of the beastkin tribes, Leon’s party, Varg, and the two siblings could keep their eyes half-open and face it, with everyone below not being able to look.

A shockwave spread without sound, turning the air into a vacuum for the briefest moment. It lasted only a fraction of a second, too short to hinder breathing, yet the beastkin—sensitive in every sense—shuddered as they felt that instant pass.

Varg watched the clash and spoke his honest admiration.

“Remarkable...”

That Urakan had forged such skill through his own training was extraordinary. That Leon, barely an adult man, stood toe-to-toe with him was even more absurd.

Varg didn’t feel that he would lose against either, but whether it was Leon or Urakan, neither would let him off with an easy fight—of that, he had no doubt.

Then, the light surging in the sky quaked violently, scattering its power in all directions before exploding. A golden whirlpool swept across hundreds of meters, tearing apart the air itself.

Luckily, the detonation was dozens of meters above the arena. Had it been at ground level, it would have left hundreds dead or maimed.

Everyone watching wondered the same thing: “Did they cancel each other out?!” Hati was the first to cry out.

“No!” Karen shouted.

If it had been a stalemate, the blast would not have shone gold. It would have dispersed in colorless fragments.

The fact that it was gold meant only one thing. The victor of this clash was—

“Leon won!”

And as if to prove her words, Urakan came crashing down from the sky into the arena. Just like his leap, his body was wreathed in a blood-red haze, but now it wavered unsteadily.

He couldn’t even land properly. With a thud, Urakan dropped to one knee, coughing up blood from the maw that once roared so thunderously. Scarlet blood glistened like crystal, showing proof of grievous internal wounds that shook his very qi.

—Wow. He still survived... any of those who fought earlier would’ve been killed three times over.

That’s why he’s second only to Varg, Leon answered El Cid as he righted his sword.

Urakan had lost Meteoric Tiger Kick and eaten the backlash of the shockwave, but the toll of Three Stars of Heaven’s Jar was immense. Leon felt a bone-deep exhaustion that made him want to collapse on the spot.

His Aura, once brimming like a lake, was now nearly drained. His arms quivered from the recoil of the secret technique, and his legs trembled as if ready to give way.

Still... I won.

It was a fight that could have gone either way. The triumph over an opponent he could not be sure of defeating made victory all the sweeter.

Leon couldn’t help but smile. But then—

“No...”

He wiped the smile away as he saw Urakan standing on both legs. His Aura was nothing like before. What had been a storm was now a breeze.

Yet Leon bared his teeth, eyes wide. Logic said the fight was over, but instinct warned otherwise. This wasn’t finished.

The battle qi magnified by Extremis dispersed, peeling away the crimson haze to reveal Urakan’s true body. It was a literal ruin.

He was soaked in blood until his stripes were hidden. More than a dozen deep cuts. And layered over all of it, the internal injuries from the ultimate clash.

This was a creature on the brink of death. Even one solid blow might end him. And still, he charged Leon without hesitation.

“Keuhuuung!”

A pitiful roar. No sound, no power left. And yet that powerless cry made Leon’s knees quake.

He deflected the incoming thrust with a single slash. It was light. So light.

Nothing like those first strikes that rattled him, even when perfectly parried. And still Leon knew.

He’s strong...!

If Urakan was in ruins, Leon had spent nearly all of his strength. Even an attack from the nearly dead Urakan was still a threat Leon could not ignore. It was the difference in species that made the problem.

Even half-dead, a single strike from Urakan could shatter Leon’s body. The Stigma of the Guardian repaired him in real time, but he would remain drained of Aura for at least several minutes.

This was the very end of the battle. Eyes rolled back, breath ragged, Leon and Urakan lunged at one another.

Leon caught a spinning kick with the flat of his blade, redirecting the impact as he stepped forward. Urakan’s hollow abdomen was exposed, but Leon ignored it.

A cut from a naked blade without Aura Sword wouldn’t be much more than a scratch. He had already learned how absurdly tough the tiger beastkin’s body was, so instead of wasting swings, Leon focused on moving his feet.

In a fight of martial skill, the target to control was space. For Leon, smaller in stature, Urakan’s reach was like a storm. A swipe of claws missed, taking strands of Leon’s hair as it passed overhead.

Urakan’s self-made art, Tiger King Style, relied on whipping his limbs like whips. In tight, close-range combat, such wide motions revealed weaknesses. Leon had to find that eye of the storm.

Had Urakan been in his right mind, he might have covered those flaws with cunning. Now, however, he was only a beast ruled by instinct.

And a beast can always be broken down.

Leon slipped into his guard and drove his sword into Urakan’s flank. He couldn’t cut his flesh or bone with raw strength alone, but what if it was a wound already torn open?

The gash ripped by Three Stars in Heaven’s Jar split wider, and blood gushed anew. Even a tiger could not endure this state.

“Graaahhh!”

Urakan screamed, flailing both arms in agony. It wasn’t a proper technique. Just a primal, frantic thrash meant only to drive the enemy back. Leon felt a faint pity watching the beast’s desperate struggle.

This was meaningless now. Leon had to finish him.

Let’s end this.

Unlike Leon, Urakan’s body had surpassed its limits. Leon’s Stigma kept healing him, while Urakan’s life force bled out like water from a cracked jar. The gap would only widen, never close.

Leon parried a wild swing, deflected a blunt kick, and in that opening raised his blade—not the edge but the flat. He aimed squarely at Urakan’s temple, intending to knock him unconscious in one clean strike.

He braced in Ox stance and thrust forward. And then—he froze.

For some reason, Leon’s advancing foot stopped half a step short. He didn’t know why. Why hesitate at the moment of victory?

The answer came immediately.

With a chilling thwip! Urakan’s tail lashed through empty air, striking exactly where Leon’s jaw would have been had he taken that half a step forward.

An eerie, killing strike imbued with qi. Leon’s nape prickled cold as he realized. When he met Urakan’s eyes again, there was reason in them once more.

“Tiger King Style: Tiger’s Unpredictable Tail...” Urakan muttered and gave a bitter smile, feigning madness all along. “So, showing it once was a mistake, then?”

“Yes. If it had been the first time, I would have fallen for it.” 𝑓𝑟ℯ𝘦𝓌𝘦𝘣𝑛𝑜𝓋𝑒𝓁.𝑐ℴ𝓂

Leon admitted it. He had stopped only because he had been caught once before—when he broke Tiger’s Rampage and counterattacked, only to be cut off by the tail from his blind spot. Without that memory, he wouldn’t have sensed this trap.

“Damn...” Urakan muttered emptily, then collapsed to the ground, knowing that that counter had been his last chance. “Hah. I lose.”

The taste of defeat was bitter as always. And yet, there was a strange relief in it too. With his eyes closed, Urakan’s face was calmer than usual.

Hearing his voice, Varg declared the outcome.

“The third duel—victory goes to the adventurer Leon! With this, Hati’s side has secured the majority with three wins! The fourth duel will not be held, and the council duel is concluded!”

Three victories out of four were enough to end it before the last. Skoll, robbed of even the chance to fight, listened to the declaration in blank despair.

Who could have expected this? The war faction had brought the strongest names on the steppe, yet the duel ended in the peace faction’s triumph.

The tribal council had begun in turmoil from the very first day.

***

During the recess following the end of the council duel, Hati marched into Leon’s tent, her expression brimming with triumph.

“We win!” she exclaimed, content evident in her joyous tone. “Beating Chieftain Bulls and Chieftain Totuga would have been impressive enough, but even defeating Chieftain Urakan? No one can complain after that. As expected of a Hero! That was the dignity of the true master of the Fenrir tribe!”

“Well, it was still a close call,” Leon waved off her praise with a wry smile. “He overpowered even the Grand Chariot’s chained secret technique and kept fighting, and on top of that, he had a final hidden move waiting. If I hadn’t avoided it on instinct, I might have lost.”

The thought alone still left him dizzy. Urakan had been both strong and cunning. He wielded a style that never clashed with his wild instincts, striking with strange, unpredictable methods. Feigning madness while battered and bloodied, luring Leon’s guard down only to attempt a killing blow—that was a battle of wits.

He had mastered the art of deception and reality on his own, without ever being taught.

El-Cid chuckled.

—If you had taken that hit, I would have given you so much crap, my disciple. You’d already let your guard down by then, hadn’t you? You thought the fight was already won, and you were ready to stop before your opponent got hurt or killed. Isn’t that right?

Yeah...

—Showing mercy to an enemy who fought you evenly is nothing but arrogance. Just like how you never once used your Jugend Steel.

T-that’s because—

El-Cid cut him off sharply.

—Because he also didn’t have armor? Then why didn’t you take into account that his natural physical strength was more than ten times greater than yours? You’re saying the gap in weapons is unfair, but the gap in raw strength is fair?

...

Leon fell silent, struck to the core. El-Cid’s voice dropped low, unusually heavy.

—Don’t delude yourself. What lies outside your body is still your power, still your ability. Aura itself is nothing more than refined strength taken from outside, and martial arts are functions grafted onto the body. Don’t draw those boundaries with the standards of common sense.

Don’t be bound by common sense...?

—Yeah. The line between inside and outside exists only in your mind. Union of man and sword isn’t anything lofty. It’s simply whether you can accept the sword in your hand as part of yourself or not.

El-Cid said it casually, yet the truth contained in his words pierced to the very essence of martial arts.

Normally, Leon would never have understood. Even those born with innate genius had stumbled and despaired at Holy King Rodrick’s teachings, unable to grasp them. Intelligence or talent alone was never enough.

However, in this moment, Leon, driven to his very limits in the life-and-death battle with Urakan, took El-Cid’s words not with intellect, but with his martial heart.

If the boundary between myself and the world is drawn only by my mind, then where do ‘I’ end? If it is I who decides that, then am I not the world itself?

His eyes glazed over without him realizing. He had fallen into a state of no-self. An enlightenment that might come only once, or a few times, in a lifetime.

Karen and Elahan noticed immediately, hurriedly pulling Hati outside the tent and standing guard to block the area.

What divides me and the world? If that boundary is drawn by the mind, is the mind itself not also me? And if thought, the will to reshape the world, is another boundary...?

Questions that might take years, decades, or even a lifetime to unravel spilled forth naturally. Beneath half-closed lids, golden radiance flickered. Space itself quivered around him as the boundary between self and other began to blur.

Someone once said, “I think, therefore I am.”

—Then how you exist depends on your thoughts.

Do not entrust it to anyone else. Define your existence with your own hands. That was the beginning of breaking free from the chains of mortality.

El-Cid grinned, watching fondly as his disciple took his first step forward.

—Ask yourself, and answer. Leon, who are you?