Battering Ram, performed with a sword rather than a spear.

It was weaker than the Star of the Horn's Battering Ram, but that was only a relative comparison. The tempest Alderan created by thrusting his sword was also terrifyingly powerful.

KRRRRRRRAK!

Its power was easy to imagine when the rocks and ground it touched were ground into tiny particles. Worse still, this was no ultimate technique. He could use it repeatedly, even just to keep an opponent in check.

Najin had split the first Battering Ram, but doing so had disrupted his stance, leaving him unable to counter the second. He managed an awkward swing, but a Sword Master's technique was not so feeble that a wavering sword tip could cut it apart.

CRACK!

Caught in the tempest, Najin slid a long way backward. He forced out his choked breath, and blood gushed from his mouth. Watching the fingers gripping his sword tremble, he gave a hollow laugh.

Strong. So damned strong. He could do this without even using sword aura? Najin had known he was monstrously powerful, but this exceeded anything he had imagined.

'That's a Sword Master.'

His stars had fallen, he could not use mana, and even his consciousness was hazy.

'That's the Empire's hero.'

Yet the man before him was still a Sword Master, still the hero of the Empire. Spitting out the blood filling his mouth, Najin immediately corrected his stance. There was no time to rest. He sensed that, to his opponent, Battering Ram was merely a means of creating distance and openings. The real attack would come afterward.

A flash.

His intuition was right. The instant Alderan's sword glinted in the distance, sword strikes flew at Najin. One, two, three... eight strikes descended on him in rapid succession.

In this situation, Najin's temporary ability to glimpse the immediate future was of little help. His eyes did not actually see the future. They merely read preliminary movements and predicted what those movements would bring about. His future sight skipped the intervening process, deriving the result directly from the cause.

SHICK.

But a Sword Master's movements contained only cause and effect. If Najin skipped the intervening process to predict the future... Alderan omitted that process to make the future Najin predicted into the present.

Swing the sword, release the strike, and let the strike reach its destination. The middle of those three steps was missing. The moment he swung his sword, the strike crossed the distance and reached its target. By the time Alderan's sword flashed, an opaque slash was already right before Najin's nose.

Najin threw himself aside.

One strike skimmed past him. Rising in a rolling motion, he swung his sword. He succeeded in splitting the second strike, but the third rushed into the opening that created.

In the end, he received the third in an incomplete stance, then the fourth and fifth with his posture thrown off...

'This will never end.'

He would only keep getting driven backward, while Alderan continued swinging his sword. At this rate, he would be pushed back until exhaustion brought defeat. As he fended off the strikes, Najin recalled Alderan's teachings.

「Abandon the idea of perfectly defending against every technique. You can only do that against someone weaker than you, or your equal. Against someone stronger? Be bold.」

Alderan truly had taught him a great deal: how to survive in the Outer Lands, the fundamentals of combat, the mindset a swordsman needed, and so much more. Reflecting on those lessons, Najin immediately put them into practice.

「Accept the damage and charge in.」

「Be bold and introduce an unpredictable element.」

「Give up what you must, and protect only what needs protecting. You cannot protect everything.」

「This is nothing special. These are things you already do. You probably did them unconsciously. But acting on instinct and understanding something before acting on it are different matters.」

He braced himself for some injuries. Using the repelling force of his sword aura to disrupt Alderan's strikes, he charged, even smashing through them with his body. Wounds opened and blood sprayed, but Najin paid them no mind.

「Yes. Like that.」

Najin closed the distance. His chances of winning were slim to begin with, but he had to get closer to improve them even slightly. He had no means of cutting an enemy dozens of meters away. His opponent did.

Draw your opponent onto ground that favors you.

Even if it did not favor him, he had to fight on ground where they could at least stand as equals. As he recalled those lessons, Najin found himself smiling. An old memory had surfaced.

The battle he had fought against Ivan while escaping the underground city had felt like this. Ivan had genuinely meant to kill Najin, while also genuinely seeking to teach him swordsmanship. Thanks to that, Najin had learned Ivan's swordsmanship and sword aura.

'This isn't much different.'

His harsh master was not trying to kill him, but his consciousness was hazy. Fighting with all his strength, he might kill Najin anyway. The slightest lapse or mistake would cost Najin his life at Alderan's sword tip.

'I can't let that happen.'

Najin had no intention of bringing his master the dishonor of killing his own pupil. Quite the opposite. He intended to grant him the greatest honor a master could enjoy: meeting his end at the hands of a pupil who had surpassed him...

TAP.

Najin kicked off the ground. He raced forward, scattering blood.

'Watch, learn, and surpass him.'

Find understanding on the brink of life and death. Overcome your limits. Just as he always had, he had to grow in this very moment. Only then could he defeat that man.

CLAAAANG!

At last, Najin closed the distance and rushed in, meeting Alderan's sword at close quarters. Eyes wide, he watched the sword Alderan wielded. To learn, and to surpass him.

CLANG! CLANG!

Sparks flew as their swords collided. Easily deflecting the repelling force of the sword aura, Alderan's blade darted straight for Najin's neck. Their swords tangled, and the din rang across the wasteland.

SHICK!

Again and again, their swords grazed each other's skin. The precarious fight continued like a walk along a tightrope, where the slightest lapse might cost them their heads. Anyone watching could never have considered this a mere sparring match between master and pupil.

And they would have been half right.

It was a sparring match between master and pupil, but also an honorable duel.

'Left, right... one strike, then the follow-up... Ah, I can't block this. To the side. Next... '

A duel against an opponent who had defeated him once already, and a duel to adorn the final moments of a knight approaching death. Najin immersed himself in it. Forgetting even to breathe, he searched for a way to win.

Of course, there were many ways to win a fight.

If he dragged things out, waited for Alderan to lose his reason and rampage, then attacked when Alderan had burned through his life and grown too exhausted to swing his sword, he might win easily.

But that would be victory in a fight, not victory in a duel.

A duel had to be honorable and fair.

It only meant something if he defeated his opponent head-on. And in Najin's view, that was not wholly impossible.

'There's a chance. A slim one, but it's there.'

By bursting his own heart and sealing away his sword aura, Alderan had balanced the scales. He had probably done so because he was certain that, under those conditions, Najin could defeat him.

Of course, Najin as he was now was not enough.

Alderan had balanced the scales on the condition that Najin would grow here and now. They were not yet level; they still tipped toward Alderan. To bring them level, Najin would have to grow.

'Honestly... '

Najin groaned. He let out a sigh, then laughed.

What a harsh master he was.

Grow here and now. Surpass me. Otherwise, you will die by my hand. You wouldn't bring that dishonor upon your master, would you? Najin smiled at Alderan, who seemed to be saying precisely that.

He swung his sword to answer the expectations of a master certain that his pupil would grow.

Challenge and breakthrough.

As though answering their master's resolve, Najin's stars blazed pure white.

2.

Alderan Basaglia felt his consciousness growing ever hazier. He had stood on the border between human and Lost for a very long time. Though he had remembered himself, he had little time left.

The time allotted to him was already over.

His body and soul, pushed beyond their limits, began to crumble. He was now no more than a flame burning fiercely before it went out. Soon, that flame would consume him entirely and reduce him to ashes.

Knowing that, Alderan stoked the fire all the harder. To shine one last time. To shine even a little more brilliantly.

'Ah... '

His consciousness scattered, and his judgment slipped away.

He began to grow confused about whom he was fighting, about who stood before him. Each time that happened, his opponent radiated an intense light.

A shining star. A truly radiant light.

That light held together Alderan's scattering consciousness. He remembered. Yes, the person before him was his pupil. Recalling that fact, Alderan swung his sword.

'More, more, more... '

Keep up. Sharper. Faster.

As though answering his expectations, the paths traced by Najin's sword grew cleaner and sharper. Alderan burst into laughter at the sight.

Just as he had expected.

Najin was growing.

What the boy had needed was a perfect example. A good master for him was not an eloquent speaker with flawless theoretical knowledge and a gift for teaching. It was an excellent swordsman who could demonstrate what to do. That was the kind of master who suited this boy.

One demonstration would help him more than a hundred words. So that was what Alderan gave him. Clinging to his fading consciousness, he wielded a perfect sword.

CLAAAANG!

Every time their swords collided.

Every time sparks flew.

Najin began to reproduce Alderan's movements exactly, as though he were a mirror. Until now, he had not fully mastered the Triumphant Sword. There had been flaws not only in his ultimate technique, but in each individual technique and movement.

It could not have been otherwise. Stripped of transcendence, Alderan's own movements had been flawed. Naturally, the movements Najin learned from him were flawed as well.

But now?

Now, Alderan had reached transcendence again. As he demonstrated his perfected techniques, Najin filled the gaps and corrected the flaws in his own movements, immediately keeping pace. The scales that had tipped toward Alderan gradually approached balance.

Bleeding, knocked away, rolling across the ground, Najin still sprang up and charged again. He struggled desperately to close the gap, keeping up even if he had to grind away his own flesh and bone. In the process, he grew.

Alderan felt joy at the sight. What a rewarding boy to teach. Within his fading consciousness, he recalled the last lingering desire he had left.

'My lingering desire. My final wish.'

Everyone had forgotten him.

No one remembered him. That fact tormented Alderan. He was more afraid than anything of his feats, the techniques he had developed, and the Order of the Golden Horn being forgotten.

He did not fear death.

He feared only a death that left nothing behind.

He had always wanted to leave something behind. He had wished for a successor who would remember him in this world, who would inherit everything he had and carry it on. He had abandoned that dream because it was clearly impossible to fulfill, but Najin had made Alderan dream again.

「I am Alderan Basaglia's pupil.」

He had made him drunk on strong liquor.

「And an apprentice knight of the Order of the Golden Horn.」

And at last, made him dream.

He had said he would wake from that dream and pay the price, but it seemed he could not. He would rather drink that strong liquor and die. He would meet his end dreaming.

'Will you do that for me?'

He did not speak. He did not ask. He merely swung his sword.

'Of course.'

By copying that sword stroke in precisely the same stance, Najin answered. Alderan laughed silently at that answer. Smiling, he spoke to himself.

Then I shall engrave it in your memory.

The Empire's eight hundred years.

The sword of the Empire's foremost warrior.

Everything I am.

With that final soliloquy, Alderan's consciousness scattered completely.

What remained was a knight.

The knight assessed his condition. He could not use sword aura. He could not draw up mana. And who was the opponent fighting him in that state? A swordsman who appeared to be a Sword Seeker. The paths his sword tip traced were quite sharp.

And they resembled his own.

It felt as though he were looking into a mirror.

The opponent had not fully caught up to him yet, but he could feel him growing with every clash of their swords. Creating distance would guarantee his victory, but it was not easy to pull away from an opponent who pursued him so fiercely.

More importantly, would that not be discourteous?

He was a knight. Though he had lost his consciousness, he had not forgotten who he was.

Alderan Basaglia.

The knight called the Empire's hero pressed the boy before him. Blood sprayed and the boy was knocked away, but he never retreated. An opponent of great pride. The knight smiled in satisfaction and gripped his sword.

He did not know why, but he felt he ought to teach his opponent something. He felt he had to show him his best. Was it respect for an excellent opponent, the desire to show him excellent swordsmanship? He could not say.

Nor did he feel any particular need to know.

That did not matter.

He was dueling now. To decide the outcome of this supremely enjoyable duel, the knight raised his sword.

Though he could not remember it, this was the place where he had once won a glorious victory. Here, he had cut the Emperor of Revelry's heart and brought down half her stars. Even if he could not recall that feat, the heavens remembered.

The fallen, crumbled stars shone.

They granted no special power. Already fallen, the stars merely shone. Their light illuminated the knight. Holding his sword raised high toward the sky, he displayed his best.

The stance in which he raised his sword high, as though to pierce the heavens, was called the First Horn, or the First Sword. It also looked rather like the raising of a military banner. The banners wrapped around his body fluttered in the wind.

Alderan Basaglia had always stood at the vanguard.

If the Empire was a ship, he was the horn mounted on its prow to ram the enemy, and the first sword to be swung. At the same time, he was the Empire's first—the first name spoken whenever the Empire was mentioned.

The empire's greatest swordsman, and its foremost warrior.

The strike that followed this stance, symbolic of Alderan himself, was the Triumphant Sword's ultimate technique. He had given it no extravagant name. Only a word that represented him.

Triumphant Return.

The Empire's foremost warrior brought down his sword.

First Horn: Triumphant Return.