Chapter 14: Testing My Limit (2)

After returning to the past, carrying the Primordial Flame within me, I had not once fought with my full strength. To be more accurate, I never had the opportunity.

Sure, a few things happened here and there.

However, most of those were nothing more than little scuffles with fellow cadets. That was why this duel with Professor Kane was something I genuinely looked forward to. Even if it was only a practice match, he was the first opponent worthy of everything I had.

Steel clashed with steel, sword and axe colliding at speeds too fast to follow with the naked eye.

With a short grunt, Professor Kane swung both his axes in an X-shape. The movement was casual, like he was playing with toys, but the power behind it was anything but light.

A harsh light burst from the soul stigmata on his chest and surged into his axes, igniting them like a wildfire. The wind pressure alone, created by a single swing, ripped the reinforced oak flooring of the dueling arena like a wild beast’s claws had torn through it. It was sheer destructive power.

If I try to meet that head-on, I’m toast, I surmised.

It wasn’t just his size, easily over two meters tall, that made him formidable. The real difference was the overwhelming gap in mana between him and me. The soul stigmata carved into the left side of Professor Kane’s chest belonged to the Earth God. Mana from the Earth God was weighty, heavy, and destructive by nature. If I tried to block that axe with a sword, it would probably shatter instantly, sword and all.

In that case…

I dropped my stance and angled my blade diagonally. Gathering all the mana in my body, I condensed it into the edge of my sword.

The moment the axe met my sword, the mana I had condensed exploded outward. The blow knocked Professor Kane’s axe slightly off balance, just enough for it to slide harmlessly down the angled blade.

This was a technique I had adapted from “Sky Flip,” which I had learned from Berald, and repurposed into swordsmanship. It was my way of surviving, of clawing back a chance, despite the overwhelming power gap between me and my opponent.

“You’re full of tricks!” Professor Kane said.

The other axe came flying, this time from the side, for my shoulder. I dropped forward in a low dive to evade it, the blade whistling just above me, and said, “Tricks practiced long enough turn into real skill, you know.”

Springing back up, I slashed. The Sun Sword Style was a style created five hundred years ago by one of the Great Five Heroes, Reynald Helios, and later completed by his distant descendant and one of the Final Five Heroes, Yuren Helios. That swordsmanship now flowed through my sword.

Clang! Clankk!

“Grgh! Where the hell did you learn this kind of swordplay?!” Professor Kane asked.

“It’s self-taught.”

It wasn’t a lie. What I wielded had started as the Sun Sword Style, but changed so much that it could barely be called the style that Yuren had once used.

After the world had fallen to the Demon God and I walked the snowy plains in silence alone, training in solitude to honor my dead comrades, there was one truth I had come to understand deeply. I am not Yuren.

My sword would never blaze with his brilliance. It would never shine with his nobility. I was weak, but persistent; fragile, but sharp. Even if my sword shattered, fell, or was crushed, it would never disappear. That was the swordsmanship of Dale Han.

I didn’t need to be lightning-fast or monstrously strong. I just needed to hit the right spot at the right time and in the right way. That alone was enough.

Steel rang out like a chorus around me. My breath came in gasps, brushing my jawline, but I kept swinging. Only use mana at the exact moment of impact.

Slashing, stabbing, parrying, twisting—and I came to know.

It wasn’t for nothing. Those endless, snow-covered fields, the white world I wandered alone, training day after day. Those hundreds, thousands of years I spent struggling… They weren’t in vain.

I didn’t do it for some grand purpose. I wasn’t chasing glory. I just didn’t want to forget. I didn’t want to let their legacy go to waste. I didn’t want to let the precious gifts they left me go to waste.

“Hah! Hahaha!” The laughter slipped out before I even realized it. My heart swelled, and goosebumps crawled up my spine. I was so giddy I could’ve screamed in triumph on the spot.

Why? What is this feeling? I wondered.

Why is it that, along with the joy, something else is rising inside me? But it’s not enough. A thirst burned in my throat, hot and insatiable. Just a little more…

I felt like if I could push just a bit further, if I could just reach a little higher, I could finally grasp the edge of the “pinnacle” that Yuren used to speak about so often.

But my body felt heavy, like it was weighed down with shackles. I knew what I had to do, and my mind understood the path, but my body couldn’t keep up. Even so, in that excruciating disconnect, I kept swinging.

***

Lucas gritted his teeth, barely managing to deflect the relentless strikes coming at him. These attacks were neither fast nor strong. He could clearly see and follow them with his eyes. He could even parry them easily. Yet, it felt like he was sinking, trapped in a slow, tightening swamp. His body, usually able to swing axes for over five hours without tiring, was now drenched in sweat after not even five minutes.

What the hell kind of swordsmanship is this?! Why the hell can’t I fight back?!

In the heat of a battle that bordered on transcendence, he felt a crushing pressure, his breath growing more labored with every passing second.

I’ll die if this continues, he thought. Not lose, but die. The idea that this was just a sparring session with a cadet had completely vanished from his mind.

If I don’t want to die… then I have to kill. I have to pour out everything I have and hold nothing back. If I want to survive, I have to kill the “enemy” in front of me.

The instant that realization dawned on him, his instincts kicked in, guiding his body in a way training never could. The color of the energy radiating from his soul stigmata changed, and a blood-red aura surged over his entire body. Blessing of the Blood Warrior.

The Blessing of the Blood Warrior was a rare, innate ability possessed only by a select few among the heroes.

The moment Lucas activated it, blood surged through his veins at a terrifying speed. His muscles swelled, and the capillaries in his eyes burst, painting them red. With that blood-red aura cloaking him, he no longer looked like a man. He looked exactly like his title suggested: a bloodthirsty hound.

With a feral growl, his axe came crashing down in a savage arc. The next moment, a sound exploded across the training ground. It was a sound that couldn’t have possibly come from a clash between sword and axe.

The attack hurled Dale through the air like a kite with its string cut, and he slammed into the far wall of the training hall.

Suddenly realizing what had happened, Lucas sprinted toward the boy embedded in the rubble. “Dale! Dale Han! Are you okay?!”

Lucas’s face went pale as he surveyed the scene; the wall was completely destroyed. Even if he was cornered, he shouldn’t have used a blessing on a cadet. “Damn it! I’ll call the academy for emergency aid right now! Just hang in there!”

If word got out that he had used his blessing on a mere cadet, disciplinary action was inevitable. But right now, that didn’t matter, not when his student’s life was on the line.

However, just as he was about to contact the school using his Hero Watch, he heard a voice.

“I’m fine.” Dale, still half-buried in debris, slowly pushed himself to his feet.

Lucas stared at him like he had just seen a ghost. “What? You… Y-you’re okay?”

Dale nodded calmly. “Yes, I’m alright.”

Lucas tilted his head, as if his brain couldn’t quite process what he was seeing. From the state of that wall… There’s no way he came out of that unharmed.

In the worst case, he could have died or, at the very least, broken a few bones. Yet, the kid looked unscathed. Thinking it might just be bravado, Lucas checked Dale’s body himself, but he found no injuries, not even a scratch.

“I lost,” Dale suddenly said.

“H-huh?”

“The sparring match. I lost.”

Only then did it finally click for Lucas that he had been in a sparring match, and not a real fight to the death. He let out a faint, dazed sound of realization. “Oh.”

Dale gave him a small smile. “Well, at least I proved that I’m strong enough to make you go all-out.”

“Ahem! I… I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to activate my blessing like that.”

“No need to apologize. I’d have been disappointed if you hadn’t used it,” Dale said as he slid his sword back into its sheath. “It was an honor to learn from you today. I’ve got another class now, so I’ll be off.”

“Ah! Right. Okay. But if you feel any pain later, even a little, come see me, alright?”

“Yes, sir.” With no hesitation, Dale turned and walked out of the devastated duelling arena.

Left standing amidst the ruins, Lucas stared after the student—no, the warrior he had just fought. “Hoo! I’ve been teaching for a long time, but this one takes the cake.”

When Dale had first asked to spar with him, he had thought the kid had lost his mind. Honestly, who wouldn’t? No matter how impressive Dale’s recent performance had been, he was still a mere cadet. Moreover, he was not just any cadet; he was the lowest-ranked cadet, even officially regarded as the worst underachiever since the founding of Reynald Academy.

“And now that same kid just pushed me to my limits?” If Lucas hadn’t experienced it himself, he never would’ve believed it. “Seriously. Did that kid travel back in time or something?”

The thought was so absurd, he nearly laughed out loud. “Well, in the end, I did win!”

Sure, he had to use his blessing to beat a cadet, but a win was still a win, right? At the very least, his dignity as a professor was still intact. However, when he replayed the battle in his head, his face slowly hardened.

Uhh! Wait a second.

That bizarre, unfamiliar sword style, the almost acrobatic control of mana, and the precision in each movement—Dale’s skills had transformed so drastically, it was like he had returned from the future. However, there was one thing about him, one thing that hadn’t changed at all.

“That boy’s mana reserves… they’re almost the same as before.”

His mana level was still pitifully low, less than ten percent of the average cadet’s. Moreover, the difference between Lucas’s mana and Dale’s mana was twentyfold. Yet, with that tiny sliver of mana, the boy had pushed him to the brink of feeling the threat of death.

To a hero, mana was everything. It was akin to their weight class. Putting their mana difference into perspective, it was like Lucas had gone all out just to defeat an eight-year-old child.

At that moment, Lucas thought about what would happen if Dale kept his current skill level but also gained a comparable amount of mana. A shiver crawled down his spine.

A long, deep sigh slipped from between his lips. “Maybe I wasn’t teaching a hero cadet, but a baby beast.”

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