GROOOOAN.

A ghostly wail erupted, shaking the soul.

WHOOSH!

An eerie mist rose from nowhere and coiled around him. Then it reached me, surrounding me on every side.

"Ahhh..."

His mournful humming drifted through it.

My heart thrashed. The immense mana slumbering within me raged as though it would break free at any moment.

'Not yet. Not yet.'

I forcibly suppressed the surging mana.

Adjusting my grip on my sword, I brought my heart and the little Ring into resonance.

ZZZING.

A faint vibration raced from my heart to my shoulder, down my arm, and into my sword.

HUMMM.

The sword trembled and sang—a sound far too thin and feeble beside that ghostly wail, as though thousands of dead souls were crying out.

I stamped my foot.

BOOM.

The roar of the floor bursting apart overlaid the sword's ringing. Its song and my stamping, my heart and the Ring, all became one.

HUMMMMM.

A powerful wave erupted. The mist that had swallowed the world tore apart, revealing the High Elf through its shreds.

His eyes brimmed with an unearthly menace, his face as frozen as a corpse's. A melody like the sobbing of the dead flowed from his ceaselessly moving lips.

His swaying shoulders suddenly stiffened.

SWISH.

A long line appeared in the air. Murky, ashen-gray sword light thrust toward my throat.

I twisted my neck aside, drawing my sword up to push his blade away. He turned his sword point, and ashen sword light slid down my blade.

I spun my sword. His blade, which had clung like a viper, flew back at once—then lunged in again.

Spreading my legs, I brought my sword down from above, cutting off its relentless path toward my throat and slashing at his chest in the same stroke.

CRASH!

Sparks scattered through the air. Beyond the flying fragments of sword light, his eyes flashed.

Another flurry of blows rained down. I blocked, dodged, and counterattacked.

CRASH! CRASH! CRASH!

Our colliding swords roared. The force of missed slashes gouged the training ground floor. Fragments of aura swirled before my eyes.

"Ahhh..."

Even then, he never stopped humming. I kept my mana resonating, refusing to yield. Countless fruitless blows passed between us.

Then, at some point, he began his Sword Dance in earnest. His feet produced countless sounds. The ashen trails my strikes had severed strand by strand traced innumerable curves in the air.

Curve after curve.

Once those countless curves joined together, a dance incomparably more lethal than this would begin. Without my interference, it would have happened long ago.

HUMMM.

I interfered relentlessly as he danced. I sent slashes between his blows, blocked the path of his advancing feet, and stamped. I made my sword ring to cut off his humming. I continually brought my mana and Ring into resonance to disrupt his movements.

The result was an awkward dance that was neither one thing nor another.

The eerie menace in his eyes intensified until blue ghost-fire blazed within them. At that moment, his humming began to change. Its mournful sobbing grew violent, like outright wailing. His footwork, too, grew thunderous, as though he meant to smash the floor apart.

WAAAAAAAH!

The ghostly wail pouring from his sword swallowed my blade's song. The sinister energy rising from his body began to overwhelm the resonance of my heart and mana. Pale mist engulfed the waves.

HUMMMM.

I made my sword ring, driving my heart and Ring against each other harder still. But it meant nothing before his changed presence and melody.

CRACK.

The Ring I had forced into existence cracked.

Apparently, this was as far as I could go against a High Elf's Sword Dance with a crude imitation Ring.

Or so I thought.

But I was wrong.

THOOM!

A heavy sound suddenly rang out.

THOOM!

It sounded like a massive lump of iron striking the floor.

THOOM!

The sound repeated. At that instant, my sword's song, which his melody had all but smothered, began to swell. The tenuous link between my Ring and heart resonated more powerfully as well.

I swept my sword fiercely. A heavy wave blossomed from its tip. The High Elf retreated.

In that opening, I turned my head to seek the source of the sudden noise.

THOOM!

The Royal Knights stood where they were, pounding their shields against the floor. Those without shields joined in by beating their chests with iron gauntlets.

THOOM!

The knights urged me on.

THOOM!

By pounding their shields, they told me it wasn't over yet.

THOOM!

By beating their chests, they told me to advance.

"Such impatient men."

I smiled.

THOOM!

I made my Ring resonate in time with their pounding shields.

THOOM!

I stepped forward in time with their beating chests. My heart and Ring resonated fiercely, overlaid by the waves the knights produced.

I took another step. The floor burst apart with a roar.

These were the footprints humanity had tirelessly left during the four hundred years I slept.

I took another step.

I was merely following in those footsteps.

And when those steps finally brought me before the High Elf, I said,

"Never look down on humans again, elf."

I brought my sword down upon the elf, whose sword point swayed with sinister grace.

FWOOSH.

Blue flames clung to my blade. The dreary, ashen sword light melted away, engulfed in fire.

His face twisted like an evil spirit's.

Blue flames poured down upon it.

Silence filled the training grounds. A moment ago, the place had been awash with noise; now, you could have heard a pin drop.

In that silence, I withdrew my sword. The High Elf stared at me.

PATTER.

A moment later, his severed locks fell to the floor. His eyes widened, and he stroked his face. As he touched the hideous marks left by the blue flames, a frenzied light flashed in his eyes.

"This is not fair."

At length, he forced the words out. Grinding his teeth, he swept his gaze around him. The Royal Knights met his eyes as though nothing had happened.

For such rigid men, they certainly knew how to act shamelessly.

I could only laugh in disbelief, but he spoke again.

"I cannot accept this."

Ghost-fire clung to his eyes again. Looking at the killing intent and rage flashing within them, I asked what he wanted, then.

He answered that he wanted a fair rematch, without anyone else's interference.

"Fine."

I answered without hesitation. Perhaps suspicious of how readily I had accepted, he grew wary.

"But I'll need a suitable incentive to rekindle my interest."

At that, he gave me a look that said he had expected as much.

"An incentive...?"

"Let's raise the stakes."

"How?"

Once again, I answered without hesitation.

"The loser will grant the winner three requests instead. Naturally, refusal is out of the question."

He readily accepted the wager. His inability to relinquish his arrogance even after things had come to this was truly laughable.

"I remind you that a pact with an elf is no light matter."

He even tried to intimidate me, oblivious to his own ragged appearance and his disgracefully shorn hair.

"We'll see whether you still say that afterward."

I answered indifferently and flicked my sword point. At that careless gesture, he pressed his lips tightly together and backed away.

Once he had put a suitable distance between us, he briskly raised his sword and aimed it at me.

"This time..."

Seeing that he was still worried about interference, I ordered the Royal Knights,

"Stand well back."

They all moved farther away from me.

"That is not enough."

Still dissatisfied, he imposed several conditions.

"Do not move. Do not use so much as a scrap of mana. Simply watch from there."

I accepted every one of his conditions.

"Yes, Your Highness."

The Royal Knights brought their feet together and set their hands smartly over their chests—the very picture of spectators.

Looking at them, I asked him, "Satisfied now?"

He nodded, wearing an arrogant expression that betrayed no memory of his recent defeat.

He had not even properly grasped that his race's most powerful weapon had just been countered. Nor did he understand what he had put at stake in this wager. His eyes merely gleamed with a frantic desire to avenge his humiliation by any means.

What an arrogant race. What an immature specimen.

The corners of my mouth curled upward.

"A word of warning."

I unleashed my stature, allowing my presence to rise without concealment. My endlessly swelling power began to snarl at him.

His confident expression stiffened.

"If you intend to change your tune once the match is decided, abandon that thought now."

I released a portion of my soul to lend binding force to our pact.

"I have staked my soul on this pact. You will do the same."

"... I will."

After a moment's hesitation, he swore on his soul to fulfill the pact faithfully.

"Should you break this sacred oath, you will pay the corresponding price."

With the pact's formalities finally complete, I beckoned to him.

"Then let's begin."

Only then did he raise his power and begin to move his lips. Apparently intending to give his all from the outset, he drove his humming straight to its climax without preamble.

Watching him, I quietly fed mana into my sword point. When the light clinging to the blade reached its peak, I brought it straight down.

And cut.

CLANGGGG.

The sword sang.

The thunderous footwork. The dizzying sword strikes. The soul-shaking hum.

Everything he had created was torn to shreds before it.

Even that was not enough; the sword continued onward.

Fear filled the High Elf's eyes. Instinctive terror at imminent death.

But I withdrew the death that had come for him.

My sword point pricked his chest. Blood immediately welled out.

His eyes shifted from his chest back to me. The disbelief and horror filling them pleased me.

"H-how...?"

Looking into those eyes, I could see exactly what he had been thinking.

What he had wanted from me, even going so far as to clumsily pretend to fall for my provocation and accept a spar, must have been the Royal House of Leonberk's [Poem of True Dragon Slaying].

In an age when myths had been forgotten, he must have intended to easily acquire a Martial Spirit Hymn that had lost its power. He would have regarded the Dragon Slayer's current heir as beneath him, no match for him at all.

But he had misunderstood something.

The Leonberk family's power did not consist solely of its dragon-slaying feat.

"It was not being a Dragon Slayer that made it possible to slay a dragon. It was slaying a dragon that made a Dragon Slayer."

This sword had cut through even the Mad Dragon's scales.

What was the pitifully soft blade of a High Elf who wasn't even fully grown compared to that?