CH 20

Chapter 20. Sword (2)

Translator: Aura

Krasue, who closed the distance between them in an instant, threw a punch at Anix as he did at Ballack.

Crush!

His fist got caught in some branches that came out around Anix.

Thump! Thump!

With his other fist imbued with aura, Krasue smashed through the branches to break free.

Then, he threw a swift kick at Anix.

This time, his leg was caught by the branches of various trees, which appeared behind Anix, and he was thrown back.

Krasue flew through the air for a moment.

Tree branches stretched out and attacked Krasue.

Krasue passed between them with peculiar acrobatic movements in the air and landed on the floor.

Then Bianca, who had been quietly watching from behind, said with a carefree attitude,

“Lord Krasue, you look like a flying squirrel.”

“Hmm.”

Meanwhile, Krasue wiped the beads of sweat from his forehead.

It wasn’t easy to deal with the Graiza Family’s secret technique.

“That’s the best you can do? I’d prefer that you at least use a weapon.”

Anix smiled slightly with his body covered by branches like armor.

The Graiza Family’s secret technique— Ruler of the Forests.

It was a unique technique in which aura was infused into plants and trees to strengthen and control them at will.

Of course, its power is weakened in places where plants cannot grow.

However, his skill contracted from a deity makes that weakness irrelevant.

‘Recovery.’

In short, regenerative power. Anix’s skill allowed him to make plants and trees come to life anywhere and become his limbs.

That was the real reason why he had been a member of the Azure Sky Order.

“I’ll do as you ask.”

Krasue smirked at him and took out what he had hidden behind his back. For the first time, Anix’s eyes narrowed.

What Krasue held in his hand was a branch.

And that branch had been torn from an Anix tree. Krasue used ‘black hood’ to steal a branch.

“Your trees are quite useful.”

Krasue took a swordsman’s stance with a branch the size of a longsword.

Anix let out a laugh. He then said with a twisted, nasty smile,

“What can you do with that?”

“You’ll see.”

Krasue charged at him. At that moment, branches from the trees behind Anix began to shoot out.

These branches imbued with his aura were shaped like icicles, and were hard enough to pierce through the marble floor.

Krasue moved in all directions through the hail of wooden icicles.

Although the wooden icicles seemed to fall freely, Anix made them dance to his tune.

Krasue had to endure his pesky presence all the time around him while Anix was a member of the Azure Sky Order.

The current Anix had the same habits as the Anix he met in his past life.

In a way, Krasue was like Anix’s natural predator. No one knew him better than Krasue.

“What?”

As Krasue slowly approached him dodging all the wooden icicles, Anix showed a reaction of disbelief.

Krasue moved as if he knew where his attacks were headed. Still, Krasue didn’t exude enormous power.

The aura felt from him was only that of an ordinary person.

‘It feels like I’ve reached my limits.’

Krasue had begun to breathe heavily as if it was getting harder to dodge the wooden icicles.

It was proof that while his mind knew what to do, his body couldn’t keep up.

‘Could it be that he has opened the third eye?’

Anix thought of the legendary ‘third eye’, but quickly snorted.

‘Unless it’s Charlotte, it’s impossible.’

There was no way someone who could use the third eye would be called Valheim’s good-for-nothing.

“Anix.”

Before he knew it, Krasue had deftly managed to close the distance and sneered,

“Let me guess, you’re thinking about my sister again.”

Anix frowned.

Those words were as if he had rubbed salt into the wound deep inside him.

“I won’t be soft on you anymore, you asked for it.”

That said, Anix raised his hands.

“Someone has to fix your foul mouth.”

A moment later, a different kind of energy seeped into his hands and infused his aura.

Thick roots suddenly broke through the marble floor behind him, and a huge tree began to grow.

The tree was so extremely large that the term “world tree” would be appropriate.

Once it absorbed the small trees around it, it took the form of a person with two arms.

Fifth Style— Forest Giant.

It was a giant created with the ‘Ruler of the Forests’ technique passed down in the Graiza Family.

The shadow of this enormous tree covered the terrace of the Alayon Inn.

“You’d better not provoke me next time.”

Beneath the giant, before which an ordinary person would involuntarily fall to their knees, Anix spoke to Krasue as if the fight was over and lowered his hand.

As a result, the giant’s fist came down to strike Krasue.

Anix’s subordinate, Elfyn, kicked open the terrace door and shouted,

“Lord Anix!”

If Krasue received a direct hit from that fist, it would definitely end his life.

But it was too late.

The massive fist that could collapse the Alayon Inn had arrived in front of Krasue.

With his eyes fixed on that fist, Krasue raised the branch above his head.

In the Secret Library of the Green Pine Pavilion, there was a tome that was thinner than the rest.

The reason for the tome’s thinness was simple: its author had only been able to create one secret art in his life.

Since he didn’t have any talents as a good-for-nothing from the Valheim Family, he focused only on the basics of the sword and repeated the same court throughout his life.

A pure court, without any adornment.

He swung the sword until it reached hundreds, then thousands, then tens of thousands, then hundreds of thousands, then billions of courts.

When he passed the age of eighty, the sword he wielded shattered to pieces.

The sword had become unable to withstand his courts.

However, at that point he no longer needed a sword.

The sword had become him, and he had become the sword.

He was the only one who with his court could reach the pinnacle of swordsmanship, called ‘body-sword union’.

From that day on, there was no one in the world who could receive his courts.

He wrote his only tome shortly before he died. Despite its brevity, the secret art it contained was in a realm that could never be reached through short-term martial arts.

With the branch raised, Krasue calmly closed his eyes.

Krasue only focused on the branch in his hand. He abstracted himself from the reality around him.

This secret art required a high-level of concentration.

The concentration necessary to become one with the object.

Even if these secret arts were available to everyone, most would not be able to learn them.

But Krasue was different.

Due to the curses in his past life, Krasue was forced into an object-like situation countless times.

Ironically, Krasue could see inside himself better than anyone else because of it.

He was empty, there was nothing inside him.

It was to be expected. He had accomplished nothing on his own.

However, that was another reason why Krasue could contain his ancestors’ secret arts within himself.

‘The sword becomes me and I become the sword.’

Plink. Plink. Plink.

The sound of falling water drops echoed in Krasue’s head.

A moment later, those drops caused ripples in Krasue’s inner lake.

Those ripples rushed like a whirlwind toward the branch in Krasue’s hand.

Swoosh!

Just then, Krasue’s ‘sword’ swung down.

“Absolute Sword.”

After a very short silence in which even the nearby insects held their breath, the Forest Giant couldn’t hold its ground.

It was cut in half.

Boom!

The Forest Giant collapsed and a loud crash resounded.

“What… what, what’s going on?”

“Did something happen on the terrace?”

The noise was so loud that a commotion broke out in the vicinity of the terrace.

However, the dust raised by the fall of the Forest Giant made it impossible for the young nobles to see what the situation was.

Amidst the dust, Anix was staring straight ahead with wide eyes.

The Forest Giant, the fifth style of his family’s secret technique that he empowered with his ‘recovery’ skill, had been cleaved in two with a single cut.

He wasn’t sure he could parry such an attack even if he tried his best.

“Hey.”

At that moment, Krasue’s voice rang out through the dust.

Startled by his voice, Anix unconsciously took a step back.

“… Ugh.”

He felt ashamed that he had recoiled at Krasue’s voice. But unlike his mind, his body was tense.

He started to break out in a cold sweat. Anix froze with nervousness, only his throat moved as he swallowed drily.

The dust had not dispersed, so Anix remained frozen with nervousness.

Meanwhile, Krasue’s figure gradually revealed itself from the dust.

He tossed the mangled branch to the floor and opened his mouth,

“Don’t mess with me from now on.”

It was not an empty threat.