The final barrier to escaping the underground city.

Najin gritted his teeth as he looked at Ivan, who stood guarding the entrance to the mine tunnel leading to the waterfall. This was the reality he had struggled to ignore.

... He knew Ivan was pursuing him. Offen had told him as much. But at the same time, Najin had hoped. Perhaps Ivan intended to let him go. Perhaps he was deliberately avoiding the pursuit. That was what Najin hoped and wished for.

Because he did not want to encounter Ivan.

Because he did not want to point his sword at Ivan.

Because he did not want to fight Ivan with the resolve to kill him.

"You're here."

But reality thrust itself before the boy's eyes, showing him that the worst situation he had imagined had come to pass.

"I've been waiting."

If you want to escape this city, overcome that towering wall. Only by overcoming the man who had drawn your boundaries and imposed your limits could you reach the outside world. Najin's face twisted as he confronted that reality.

"Draw it. Your sword."

Ivan drew his blade. He offered no sword salute. He merely pointed its tip at Najin, his gaze colder than ever, his voice low.

Pressure bore down on Najin's shoulders. What he felt was a clinging, viscous killing intent.

He instinctively knew there was no other way. He did not want to fight. He was afraid. Yet with no alternative, he drew his sword. The blade scraped roughly against its scabbard as it came free and leveled at Ivan.

Then—

BOOM!

Ivan kicked off the ground and charged. Unlike during their sparring matches, he did not wait for Najin to approach first. Trailing vivid blue sword aura, Ivan swung at him.

Ivan forced the demand upon Najin:

Come at me prepared to die.

Otherwise, I will have no choice but to cut you down.

2.

Ivan, knight of Atanga.

Ivan had become a Sword Expert at thirty-one and served as a knight of Atanga for eight years. Even after losing his honor and being cast into the underground city, he had never neglected his training over the past ten years.

Eighteen years had passed since he became a Sword Expert.

Once, Ivan had been called a rising prospect of the Atanga Knight Order. With proper support and instruction, he might have become a Sword Seeker. A knight of such promise had spent eighteen years at a single level.

What that meant was simple.

Ivan stood among the upper ranks of Sword Experts. He could expect victory against most Experts, and his swordsmanship and combat skills had approached perfection over those long years.

In other words...

"... Ugh!"

For Najin, who was only just approaching the level of a Sword Expert, Ivan was far too formidable an opponent. The instant he parried Ivan's swing, his body was sent flying.

The weight behind the sword was different.

The density of the sword aura was different.

Driven back despite coating his blade in sword aura, Najin rolled across the ground and scrambled upright. Naturally, there was no time to catch his breath. Ivan pursued at once, and his sword slammed into the spot Najin had occupied a moment earlier.

BOOM!

A deep gouge opened in the earth, and dust erupted into the air.

The instant the rising dust obscured his vision, Ivan's sword surged up through it.

CLAAANG!

Though Najin barely managed to block, he was driven back again. His sword hand tingled.

Najin realized just how much Ivan had gone easy on him in their sparring matches, how much he had held back.

They had crossed blades only two or three times, yet his fingers were already trembling. Cold sweat ran down his spine. He gritted his teeth and steadied his breathing, tracking Ivan's movements with his eyes wide open.

Fast. Heavy. And unbroken.

Ivan's movements seemed separate, yet all of them formed a single flow. Najin was being swept along by it.

"Guh!"

He blocked the sword, only to take a knee.

He tried to deflect the blade, but Ivan countered the technique and drove his pommel into Najin's temple. As his vision wavered, Ivan's greave-clad leg shot out and kicked him in the stomach.

His breathing faltered. With it, his stance collapsed.

He barely twisted aside from the sword strike that drove into that opening, but the tip grazed him, spraying blood. Najin groaned amid the flying droplets. He could not let himself be swept along like this.

'I have to counterattack.'

But how?

Combat techniques, dirty tricks, deception, ways to lure an opponent into carelessness... Nothing Najin had accumulated thus far worked against Ivan.

Because all of it had come from Ivan.

Ivan had taught him those things, and naturally, Ivan surpassed him in them. The density of his sword aura, the refinement of his techniques, the weight of his sword, his stance, his tricks... Ivan held the advantage in every area.

["Don't fight on your opponent's battlefield."]

["You can't always fight someone weaker than you. So how do you fight someone stronger?"]

Najin remembered.

["Draw them onto your battlefield."]

["Find where you surpass your opponent."]

Somewhere he could surpass Ivan.

'... He told me not to put too much faith in my talent, but...'

There was only one thing Najin could trust enough to stake his chances on. The only thing in which he could surpass Ivan: his talent, his particular gift. Najin opened his eyes wide.

His bloodshot eyes darted rapidly.

Even when he had been unable to keep up with Ivan's movements, even now as he was being overwhelmed, his eyes had tracked Ivan's movements precisely. He focused them still harder.

With his eyes wide open, he could see it.

The gaps between Ivan's movements. The subtle delay as one motion connected to the next. Najin did not yet possess a technique that could strike precisely into those gaps. He had never learned one.

'But...'

Not having learned it was no reason to keep taking a beating. Since when had he relied on instruction? The techniques he had learned merely expanded his options. What had always kept him alive was quick judgment and boldness.

Najin kicked off the ground and charged.

CLANG, SCRAAAPE!

One sword slid along the flat of the other. Just as Ivan moved to counter what looked like an attempt at deflection, Najin darted inside his reach. Boldly closing in, Najin twisted his body and drove his pommel into Ivan's shoulder.

CRACK!

The opening Najin had spotted with his own eyes. He struck the seam connecting one stance to the next. For the first time, Ivan's flow broke, and Najin kicked off the ground without letting the opportunity slip.

Circling to Ivan's side, Najin swung his sword.

CLANG!

For the first time, Ivan stepped back. Absorbed in his own sword stroke, Najin did not notice the faint smile spreading across Ivan's lips.

'A technique I never even taught him...'

Ivan concealed his smile as he responded.

'And he's using it all on his own.'

Najin still fell short of Ivan.

He was still inexperienced, and his understanding of the sword as a weapon remained shallow. Yet he was making up for all of it with his senses and his eyes.

He used techniques he had never been taught. Ivan marveled at the way Najin improvised techniques on the spot. Even so, he still thought...

It was not enough.

He was giving the boy this many clues, yet Najin still had not caught on. Ivan forcefully knocked back Najin, who kept pressing him, and opened some distance.

"..."

Forced back, Najin sensed something amiss.

Ivan's killing intent kept vanishing and returning. At times, he seemed intent on killing Najin; at others, he seemed intent on teaching him.

Neither was false.

Ivan sincerely meant to kill Najin, and at the same time, he sincerely meant to teach him. A human heart could not be reduced to a single impulse. While Najin struggled to make sense of that unsettling contradiction...

"Whew..."

Ivan exhaled.

Then he repeated the meaningless motion he had performed several times during the fight: raising his sword and steadying his breathing.

KEEN!

Ivan's sword aura grew vivid.

The aura that had been about to scatter became orderly, and the fading blue flames flared anew. He had repeated that motion over and over. Najin silently observed it.

Ivan approached and swung his sword. Najin met the blade in his own way.

Blocking. Being cut. Being kicked.

Pushing back, driving into an opening, retreating again.

As the battle continued, Najin realized something. He could improvise to make up for the other differences, but there was one fundamental element in which Ivan outmatched him: the sword aura coating Ivan's blade.

Ivan's sword aura was vivid and orderly.

Najin's sword aura was faint and rough.

Perfectly contained, complete sword aura, and fragments that were neither. That was the gulf between Ivan and himself. How could he bridge it? As Najin searched for the answer, Ivan assumed that stance again.

The stance he kept taking, over and over.

Najin narrowed his eyes.

["When I return, I'll teach you how to wield sword aura."]

["I swear it on my pride as Ivan, knight of Atanga."]

... Could it be?

Najin watched Ivan's movements.

For some time now, Ivan had been repeating a meaningless motion. As though telling him to watch. Najin unwittingly let out a hollow laugh at the sight. He finally understood.

The answer was there.

'... What the hell...'

What was he supposed to make of this?

Najin had seen that stance at close range again and again, along with the flow moving through Ivan's body and the flow winding around his sword. Having seen it, he understood.

Najin took a large step back.

Ivan did not pursue him.

As though inviting him to try.

"Whew..."

Najin let out a long breath.

Steadying his breathing, he assumed the stance most familiar to him: sword hanging behind his waist, body lowered, ready to charge. Holding that stance, he concentrated on the flow within his body.

He did not simply let it flow. He seized it and brought it under his control, making it move in the direction he wanted, along the path he chose.

Naturally, it was not easy.

This was not a process simple enough to imitate after watching it only a few times. Normally, one came to understand it through long hours of meditation, seated cross-legged.

Ivan had done so. His teacher had done so. Most of the Atanga Knight Order had gained that understanding in the same way. But Ivan knew the boy before him was far removed from those who were merely talented.

Najin had exceptional eyes.

Ivan knew that better than anyone.

Showing him once rather than telling him a hundred times, making him experience it firsthand—that was the right way to teach this boy. Watching Najin, Ivan chuckled.

"That's right."

Only then did Ivan speak.

"That's how you use it."

Najin's lowered sword.

Golden particles rose over the blade wreathed in white sword aura. They filled the areas the white had failed to cover, mingling with it.

Golden particles blended into the white sword aura.

Gold glittered within the dense white.

What took shape was platinum sword aura. Here, where no stars could be seen, platinum colored the sword of a boy who had always yearned for them. Sword aura the color of starlight.

The moment Ivan saw the aura coloring the boy's sword, his eye widened. Then he burst into laughter. Platinum sword aura. As far as Ivan remembered, no one else had possessed aura of that color. Sword aura resembling starlight had belonged to King Arthur alone.

Before him stood a boy who had drawn the sword King Arthur left behind and possessed sword aura like King Arthur's.

With a color of its own, the sword aura had gone beyond fragments to envelop the entire blade.

It was proof that the boy had fully attained the level of a Sword Expert. Adjusting his grip, Ivan charged at Najin. The two sword auras tore into each other.

Platinum sword aura collided with vivid blue.

3.

Every clash of their swords sent vivid blue flames and platinum starlight flying. After several exchanges, Ivan and Najin stepped back at the same time. Looking at the boy who had now almost caught up to him, Ivan thought:

This would do.

"Najin."

He had fulfilled his duty as a teacher.

"Come at me prepared to kill."

Ivan lowered his sword.

It was a stance he had never shown Najin, one from which he could unleash the technique he took such pride in. The swordsmanship he had used as a knight of Atanga to execute evildoers who had lost their honor and pride.

Before unleashing it, Ivan gave a warning.

He would bring everything he had to bear in an attempt to kill Najin, and Najin would have to do the same. He was to point the brightest thing he possessed at Ivan.

The wavering was gone.

All that remained in Ivan was killing intent.

"..."

Najin silently lowered his sword.

It was nothing like an admission of defeat. Quite the opposite. Sheathing his sword at his waist, Najin reached into empty air.

His hand clenched tight.

Najin grasped the empty air to reveal the brightest thing he possessed. Space rippled, and starlight began gathering. What appeared in the boy's hand was the Sword of Stars, Excalibur.

Starlight illuminated the underground city.

Najin staggered the moment he drew Excalibur. Merely summoning the sword demanded a considerable expenditure of energy.

But he soon steadied his stance, determined to break through the wall barring his way and move forward.

The boy who held a star and the knight who chased the stars faced each other.