I Pulled Out the Excalibur

Chapter 129

Chapter 129

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Demon Hunting (3)

In literature, transcendents such as Sword Masters and Archmages were often described as Beings who, in human form, have touched the domain of the gods.

Najin was reminded again that the description wasn’t an exaggeration. The scene unfolding before his eyes was a miracle—one worthy of being called divine intervention.

The ripple effect spanning an entire city; the vibrations traveling thousands of meters with ease…

Such massive forces couldn’t possibly have been caused by a single person, and yet, they had. It wasn’t without reason that beings like them were called transcendents. They performed feats that defied human comprehension.

In the face of such overwhelming power, most people felt fear. They revered it, were terrified by it, and saw those who wielded it as entirely different beings. The inquisitors beside Najin, covering their ears, felt that fear, as did the dark mages cowering in terror within the city.

Not everyone reacted that way.

Standing there was one exception—a young man.

Najin removed his hands from his ears and listened carefully to the reverberating Sword Scream. He straightened the knees he had instinctively bent, lifted his head, and opened his eyes wide to take in the unfolding spectacle.

Unconsciously, a grin spread across his face. His eyes sparkled, and his expression conveyed anything but fear.

Was it excitement, anticipation, or perhaps fascination?

Najin hadn’t agreed to Yuel’s proposal so readily and without hesitation for no reason. As he had said before, he saw it as an opportunity.

It was a chance to stretch his body before heading to the Outland—a chance to witness, up close, the kind of battle he would one day have to endure and to see the types of opponents he would inevitably face.

It was, simply put, the perfect opportunity.

Grinning openly, Najin stepped forward. While the inquisitors were overwhelmed by the ripples of power Yuel unleashed, Najin made his way toward the city’s front gate.

“I’ll go ahead.”

Clang!

He drew his sword.

The streets of Baldornos were steeped in darkness.

As a city partially swallowed by the Outland, it was draped in an oppressive shadow with no light to dispel it. There wasn’t a single lantern to illuminate the streets.

Dark, damp, and eerie…

An ordinary person would likely lose their mind after just a few days in such a place, but dark mages were anything but ordinary. Their very name bore the word “dark”, a testament to their love for darkness.

Dark, damp, eerie, and terrifying? All the better.

They were the kinds of people who eagerly set up their workshops in sewers and abandoned cities. The fact that such places were excellent for hiding and escaping was only a minor advantage. Dark mages genuinely preferred dark, damp environments.

‘I wonder if practicing black magic alters your brain structure, making you enjoy moldy, wet places like some kind of fungus?’

– There was a mage who wrote a thesis on that once.

‘Really? Who’d waste their time on such a pointless topic?’

– Me.

‘…Oh.’

The decrepit buildings, the scattered bricks, and the desolation of a city whose residents vanished overnight some 300 years prior created a heavy silence. Except, of course, for the occasional screeeeeech! of Yuel Razian’s sword carving through her enemies in the distance.

Najin walked through the silence.

His footsteps echoed loudly across the empty streets. He wasn’t trying to move quietly. On the contrary, he deliberately let his steps resound.

Silencing his movements would have been easy, but there was no need.

He wanted the dark mages hiding throughout the city to sense him. While Yuel Razian wreaked havoc at the rear gate, literally dismantling the city, the dark mages in chaos had limited options.

Option one: kill the Executioner.

Option two: escape from the Executioner.

If they had been capable of the first option, they wouldn’t have been hiding in that city in the first place. The only real option left was the second, which required dealing with Najin or attempting to climb the city walls.

Screeech!

Najin glanced briefly toward the wall and spotted a dark mage climbing it with magic, only to have his torso neatly severed, sending his body plummeting to the ground.

The mage succeeded in escaping… from life.

Clearly, escaping over the wall wasn’t a viable option. Scaling an open wall in front of a Sword Master with a range of several hundred meters was akin to painting a target on your back.

That left only the front gate.

Najin was standing right there. The dark mages, sensing Yuel’s relentless advance from the rear, made their decision. Previously undetectable, their presences suddenly became clear as they dropped their concealment.

The dark mages lurking within the abandoned buildings of the city began to move.

From behind crumbling walls, in gaps between bricks, through the slits of curtains over broken windows, and between rooftops and chimneys, they emerged.

From the shadows, dark lights flickered—the precursor to spellcasting.

The simultaneous flashes of dark energy were nearly invisible to the naked eye, their color blending into the shadows.

Nearly invisible, but not entirely.

As the lights flared, Najin’s eyes darted rapidly from one to the next. Left to right, top to bottom. The flashes lasted no more than three seconds, but for Najin, that was enough.

Seventeen…

Seventeen flashes. Seventeen mages. Seventeen spells.

It took him one second to count them, another second to slam his foot into the ground, and a final second to exhale and push off.

Three seconds… That’s how long it took for the spells to complete and launch.

Dark projectiles, crimson beams, and jagged spikes of shadow hurtled toward Najin from all directions, but by the time they were fired, he was already moving.

The place he had been standing exploded with a flurry of black spikes, molten rays, and shattering rubble.

Ten spells.

Najin’s eyes remained calm.

Had it been before he became a Sword Seeker or before his battle against the Witch in the Outland, he might have struggled.

For the Najin after those events? It didn’t seem so difficult.

He dashed forward. The spells, unable to keep up with his speed, struck random targets, failing to hit him.

With a burst of acceleration, he ran along the wall.

Swish!

Spells that had been manually adjusted to track him turned sharply, giving chase. From behind, above, and in front, the attacks closed in.

Even so, Najin didn’t stop.

He swung his sword as he ran.

Despite his unstable stance while running along the wall, his sword carved a precise arc.

Slice!

Spells caught in his Sword Aura vanished without a trace. With his path cleared, he pushed off the wall and leaped, targeting the closest of the seventeen flashes he had seen earlier—a dark mage hiding behind a crumbling wall.

He swung his sword mid-leap. The wall stood between him and the mage, but the moment his Sword Aura extended, the wall lost its value as cover.

Slash!

The blade cleaved through the wall with ease.

The mage’s neck, softer than the stone wall, met the same fate.

Najin landed gracefully, already pivoting toward his next target—a dark mage crouched between a rooftop and a chimney.

Swish!

A clean line appeared from the mage’s forehead to his jaw. As the body collapsed, Najin had already moved on. Bounding across the rooftops, his speed was overwhelming.

He was far too fast for the mages to track, either with their eyes or with magic.

The chaos deepened, and he continued his efficient hunt, one step ahead of his enemies at every turn.

As the mages’ numbers dwindled and their hiding spots were exposed, panic spread, and then, a thunderous noise erupted.

From the castle at the city’s center—a stronghold converted into a workshop by the mages—something flew from the highest point.

No, “flew” wasn’t quite right.

It hurtled…

Straight toward Najin.

“Did you know?”

“C-cough… gah… huff…”

“If you split Baldornos into a 7:3 ratio, the part we’re standing on now falls within the ‘7’ portion?” Yuel Razian’s tone was calm and conversational.

Her hair, as white and smooth as the first snow of winter, gleamed faintly in the dim light. Long lashes framed her half-lidded crimson eyes, their glint unsettling yet hypnotic.

She was, by any measure, a beautiful woman—a striking figure whose name was never omitted when discussing the most beautiful in the Empire.

Even her perpetually expressionless face added to her allure, imbuing her with an air of mystery.

For a fleeting moment, the dark mage before her—Zarkan—might have considered her beautiful.

…If only the insane woman wasn’t strangling him with her bare hands.

…If only she hadn’t just slaughtered every one of his subordinates in the stronghold.

Zarkan, a 6th-circle dark mage and the leader of the mages who had taken over Baldornos, stared at Yuel with trembling eyes as she tightened her grip around his neck.

Her crimson gaze, cold and detached, gave him the distinct impression that she didn’t care about him in the slightest.

“I promised that I would handle the seven portions of Baldornos, leaving the remaining three for my companion. Ah, and by ‘companion,’ I don’t mean you, whose neck I’m currently holding.”

Zarkan wasn’t curious. Not in the least, but when you were dangling by your neck, held by a Sword Master, curiosity wasn’t a choice—it was a survival tactic.

“Following that agreement, killing you falls to me since you’re in my zone, and yet, it feels… unsatisfying.” Yuel’s lips parted slightly, a faint hum escaping them as though she were mulling over something trivial.

“I want to see that boy fight a bit longer. I want to see him bleed, to see him teeter on the edge of defeat before pulling off a victory. Yes, killing you right now would be enjoyable, no doubt, but…”

She nodded to herself as if reaching a conclusion. “This would be even more fun.”

They stood on the stronghold’s highest level, a vantage point overlooking the entire city of Baldornos, and Yuel strode toward the edge.

“Demons are remarkably resilient to physical damage, you know. I’ve tested it before—how much purely physical force is needed to destroy a demon without using magic. The results were fascinating.”

Her steps were measured, almost leisurely, as she approached the edge. “3,761 strikes. That’s how many stabs to the heart it took before a demon finally died. Was it the 3,762nd strike that killed it, you ask? Surprisingly, no. The demon committed suicide at that point. A pity. I wanted to see how far it could go.”

She tilted her head slightly as if lost in thought, before snapping back to reality. “I digress. The point is… demons are durable. Naturally, since you’ve contracted with one, your body should be equally sturdy. A fall from this height shouldn’t kill you.”

Yuel reached the edge of the stronghold, the dividing line between Baldornos’s seven-part and three-part zones. One more step forward would place her in Najin’s zone.

Tap.

She stopped at the threshold and raised her arm. “Humans have always dreamed of flight. Most harbor a yearning for the word ‘soar.’ I hope you do as well.”

With that, she swung her arm in an almost careless motion, hurling Zarkan forward like a ball.

“Enjoy your flight.” She flung him from the stronghold’s summit, aiming straight for where Najin stood.

Swoosh!

The trajectory was crude, and the direction was unmistakably downward rather than upward, but if “flight” was defined as leaving the ground and traveling through the air, Zarkan was undoubtedly flying.

“Gaaaaahhhh!” Zarkan’s scream tore through the air.

Unfortunately for him, no one was listening.