[686] An Incident Occurs (1)
If you try to picture events happening in a far, distant corner of the cosmos, the definition of time becomes meaningless.
It's simply too far away.
And now, in an era humanity could never reach, the most powerful explosion in the universe erupted.
A gamma-ray burst.
The explosion of an ultrabright supernova released, in an instant, the energy a sun emits over ten billion years and spewed jets approaching the speed of light.
It was a cataclysm of incomprehensible force.
Though it lasted only a moment, it was enough to tear the very fabric of spacetime.
And beyond that lightless veil, a single eye watched this universe.
* * *
The downpour had eased, but rain still chilled Radum's gray landscape.
In the middle of ruins where most buildings had collapsed, Drakkar glared down at Rian, who lay with shattered limbs.
What the hell is he?
His body, buried in the rubble, didn't move—but it was obvious he would rise again.
- Smile. Smile.
Hearing that endlessly resonant whisper, Rian gripped the greatsword's hilt until his knuckles whitened.
Am I imagining this?
Rebirth was no longer new.
But because it wasn't something anyone could do, that familiarity only pushed back like a vast, unfamiliar weight.
A body breaking—and then mending.
Had it ever truly been broken or truly healed in the first place?
Like dying a thousand times in a dream and waking to find none of it happened, what if all of this began with a single misperception…
Stop thinking.
Having finished recovering, Rian slammed the greatsword into the ground and slowly hauled himself to his feet.
The right answer doesn't matter.
All that matters is doing what you can.
"I'll give you this much—your life's tough to kill."
Drakkar strode forward and said, "Maybe you'd have won—if your opponent wasn't me. That's your greatest failing."
Any enemy who could stand with broken limbs would simply collapse from attrition.
"Dragonfolk have no end to their stamina. If you're immortal, I'll tear you apart here forever."
Dragonfolk were known as beings almost like objects.
Doesn't matter.
Rian leveled the greatsword at Drakkar's brow.
You'll be the one who breaks first.
Drakkar sprang forward as if not worth answering.
Kwah! Kwah! Kwah!
The clash of Drakkar's draconic art and Rian's greatsword ravaged the area, and the balance of power tipped slightly in Drakkar's favor.
He's strong.
Rian's honest assessment.
But that was all.
Drakkar's brute strength came from his race—not from skill, talent, effort, or training.
You didn't earn it with your own power.
So there was nothing to fear.
A lion is born for predation, but visible strength is only something to adapt to.
That's not what humans fear.
"I'll surpass you!"
Rian swung the greatsword at Mach speed, warping the air, but Drakkar's draconic art did not yield.
"That's why you're weak!"
The histories of countless races crushed beneath Drakkar proved no one could defeat the dragon-people.
When Drakkar's strike, faster than the air, hit the greatsword, a bell-like clang rang out.
Guhk!
Pushed by overwhelming force, Rian plowed through one wall, burst through another, and flew out.
"I'll smash everything but your head."
Drakkar vaulted over a building in a single bound, scanned the ground, and frowned in confusion.
What the—
Rian—who should at least have broken arms—glared back with clear eyes and assumed a counter stance.
He neutralized the impact?
That was a brand-new reaction, not something one could learn mid-fight.
No. The time was too short.
It takes humans an average of ten thousand hours to master a skill—not especially high or low compared to other lifeforms.
Their one edge is insight by synthesis.
The chance a human gains some realization from an event, big or small, is an astonishing 0.000001 percent.
A rate far above the average for lifeforms.
Multiply that by a population over three billion, and you see why humans came to dominate the planet.
No. He only blocked it by luck.
Drakkar shook his head.
It was still just species statistics; the probability Rian adapted to draconic force through insight seemed negligible.
Can he block this one too?
Drakkar unleashed a fiercer assault, but Rian's reactions sharpened with each passing moment.
Is this possible?
Then the attack was stopped.
Kuhhhh!
Rian stood his ground and repelled the draconic blow without retreat, and what Drakkar realized was the meaninglessness of probability.
He isn't an ordinary human.
"Do you know how many times I've died?"
Rian pressed down on Drakkar, greatsword clenched in a contorted grip.
A thousand times.
It wasn't bluster; the fact chilled Drakkar.
People who survive near-death ordeals and go on to live completely different lives do so because they gained insight from those extremes.
Having actually died a thousand times, Rian's intensity in correcting errors—both in angle and depth—was unmatched.
"Trash!"
Drakkar shoved Rian back and charged with burning eyes, fists striking rapidly.
I'll stop you here.
A motion honed by endless repetition.
"By a human's hand!"
Drakkar's pride bled out.
Phantom fists rained from all directions, but each attack was stopped by Rian's blade.
This, this, this—
The body reacted before thought.
So this is it, Shirone. The one thing I gained from dying a thousand times…
Tears welled at a realization he'd never felt before.
You repeated every moment.
He could see it.
The position of his arm, his body's center, the rhythm of his heartbeat.
No—he felt as if he were watching it.
I have no talent, but—
Because his body had known every possible failure.
Tracing a great circle, what returned was a single complete self-image.
Aaaahhhh!
Rian howled with exultation.
He had wandered a dark cave for twenty years without once imagining there might be an exit.
Maybe there was no path.
Maybe he could never escape. Still, he'd kept running through that bleak stretch.
But there was a way out. There was, Shirone!
Throwing himself toward the light at the cave's end, Rian finally felt the whole world ripple with the light of realization.
It still won't be enough to beat me!
Insight spans time, and Drakkar felt Rian's change in his bones.
The Rian from moments ago and the Rian now were so different you could call them different people.
"No matter—he's still only human."
Dragon Art — Tyranny.
Drakkar activated the draconic helm that pushed his body to the limit and bore down on Rian.
It was a technique whose recoil even the dragon-people's durability had to swallow, but there was no room to worry about that now.
I'd rather end my life myself than be killed by a human!
"Dragon Slayer" was the highest title a human could earn, but for the dragon-people it was a humiliation worse than death.
Kuuuuung!
When Drakkar and Rian's attacks collided, the ground rolled like waves and a massive circular shockwave rippled outward.
Veins bulged on Rian's face from the force of Tyranny.
Guhhhh!
Even after gaining the greatest insight of his life, it was life's irony that his opponent remained stronger.
As the forces roughly balanced, Drakkar's torso began to lean toward Rian.
"Heh heh heh. You lose. Die."
"It's not over yet."
Rian opened his eyes wide, raised his will of divine transcendence, and Denai's hallucination twisted into something even more grotesque.
"T—this—!"
The world unfurled beyond Rian's shoulder, rose as a whole, and folded toward Drakkar.
It's folding.
If the old single-sword split the world in two, this one split a world that had been folded in half.
As if gravity had doubled, crushing pressure bore down on Drakkar.
Slash! Slash!
From outside the field of view, the world was rent at terrifying speed and surged in.
For the first time in his life, Drakkar felt fear.
Kraaaah!
At the same instant, Rian's greatsword cleaved the scene.
Ughhhh…
To feel a cold wind at your body's center was a terrifying sensation.
Denai vanished as if it had only been an illusion and the landscape stitched back together; the only thing changed was Drakkar's body.
How dare—you—me…
His voice split left and right, heard from both sides, and finally Drakkar—now two—collapsed to the ground.
Huuuuh.
Leaning on the greatsword's hilt, Rian caught his breath, slowly straightened, and turned his neck.
Am I Radum's strongest now?
There was no need to pin meaning on it.
The dragon-people were, after all, a failed experiment created by dragons.
I still can't call myself a Dragon Slayer with just this.
You could sense how powerful dragons were just from someone like Drakkar.
But I don't doubt it anymore.
The schema he gained after twenty years gave him the certainty he could overcome whatever came next.
By the way—where's Shirone?
Rian looked up, serious, at the plume of dust rising from Radum's center.
Dust billowing up through the rain alone was enough to guess something had struck that place.
Who would do something that absurd?
He'd seen Saenghwa fall with his own eyes, but he hadn't had time to analyze it while focused on the fight.
"Probably had one hell of a scrap."
Thinking was a bother.
Rian slung the greatsword over his shoulder and headed for the new battlefield when a voice came from above.
"Got him?"
Kuan, holding Benechia's waist, looked down from the rooftop of a half-ruined building.
Rian, who'd studied Drakkar, reported, "I can't say I finished him, but I did split him in two, at least."
"…Looks like lightning struck from the sky."
Having worked as an investigator in Radum, Kuan knew roughly the Triarchs' capabilities.
Plarino has never left Saenghwa, but Drakkar—whom they'd watched through espionage—was not someone to take lightly.
Puh.
Rian gave a hollow laugh and shrugged. "What a hurtful thing to say. Do you think I could bring down a dragon-person that easily? It was a strike stronger than lightning."
Why's he like that? Did the fight fry his brain?
Kuan tilted his head at Rian's unusually buoyant mood—he wasn't foolish, just blunt.
"I've opened the schema."
Now Kuan understood, but he didn't avert his gaze; he stared steadily at Rian.
"…Right."
Cradling Benechia, he jumped down from the building and walked toward where Rian stood.
From the Kaizen Sword School, through the duel with Rai, to leaving on his knightly apprenticeship—countless memories flickered by, but Kuan, surveying the scene in Saenghwa, only said briefly, "Let's go."
Rian savored those words, nodded with a satisfied smile.
They carried more weight than any other words.
"Yes."
As he answered, the two swordsmen kicked off the ground and took to the air.