A clearing made by sweeping away every tree in the vicinity.

In that incongruous space, empty of even a single tree despite being in the heart of the forest, Griffin raised his sword. Red branches stretched high into the sky above his blade.

Sword aura in the shape of a red thorn tree.

A red thorn tree took root in the heart of the forest. Griffin raised his sword slowly, but there were no openings in his movement. Najin, poised to dart into a gap, frowned.

He could see no opening.

Instinct told him this was different from anything Griffin had shown him so far. This was no basic swordsmanship. It was a martial art a warrior had honed throughout his life. Griffin's stance exuded that weight and precision.

Najin's instincts screamed at him to retreat immediately.

Putting distance between himself and an opponent preparing a major technique was decidedly a bad move. But if he had no way to withstand that sword, he had to make it.

THUD.

Najin stamped down on the ground, bringing himself to a halt. His momentum pitched him forward, but he managed to kick off and leap backward. In the end, it was the right decision.

Griffin swung his sword.

The red thorn tree extended its branches.

The sound of the sword's swing was not the slicing hiss of a blade. A great cracking sound rang out, as though something were splitting apart. Wind rushed past, and dust billowed upward. When it cleared, the ground lay split open.

Where Najin had stood moments earlier, sword marks in the shape of a thorn tree were carved into the earth within roughly five paces of Griffin.

And Griffin's sword did not stop. Rooted to the ground, he swung his thorn tree. Rather than a knight wielding a sword, he looked like a giant swinging an enormous tree he had torn out by the roots.

CRACK!

The earth split. The longsword in Griffin's hand was only about 120 centimeters long, but once sheathed in red thorn-tree aura, its length and width more than tripled. Yet sword aura had no weight, only repulsive force, so he could swing it almost as quickly as an ordinary longsword.

'At the Sword Seeker level, they begin to defy common sense.'

Najin was now forced to experience firsthand that sentence he had read somewhere. A greatsword more than three meters long was swinging at the speed of a longsword. The instant one of those extending branches touched him, it would surely slice through not only his flesh, but his bones.

He rolled across the ground, kicked off the earth, and kept his eyes wide as he read each movement in advance... but dodging alone could not get him out of this.

At last, an attack came that he could not evade.

Najin thrust his sword against the red thorn tree sweeping horizontally toward him. Though he pushed his sword aura's output to its limit, it began eroding rapidly the moment it met Griffin's.

KRRR-SCREEECH!

His aura lost in repulsive force.

It lost in density.

Though he gripped his sword tightly, the violently shaking hilt threatened to fly out of his hands. His fingers bent backward with a crunch. He could not withstand this. If he stayed as he was, all ten fingers would be broken.

Najin gritted his teeth and kicked off the ground.

The moment his feet left the earth, his body lifted into the air and was hurled sideways. If he could not withstand the blow, he had decided it was better to let it send him flying.

CLANG!

Flung far away, Najin barely managed to roll and get to his feet. His arms were numb and his fingers throbbed. Most of his sword aura had been shaved away, and it no longer shone fiercely. It only flickered briefly, like a torch burned almost to nothing.

"Cough, ack."

He had been maintaining his balance by the barest margin, taking in more mana than he could hold and driving his body mercilessly. His ravaged insides screamed, and dark red blood flowed endlessly from the long cut in his shoulder sustained at the start of the fight.

The situation could not be worse.

He was cornered, and his opponent was still strong.

A sweet whisper lingered in Najin's ears. Draw Excalibur. If he drew it, might he not be able to win? But he had no intention of yielding to that whisper. It was his last resort.

That power was still far too great for him to wield.

If he relied on it and brought it out whenever he was in danger, he would never grow. Besides, drawing it here might get him through the immediate crisis, but would only bring greater trials afterward. Najin steadied his breathing and thought.

Use your head. Find an answer.

Think of a way to survive this formidable knight.

'What I lack is... sword aura.'

He could somehow make up for the other factors.

His greatest problem was his inability to withstand his opponent's sword. The gap between their sword auras. Ultimately, there was only one way to bridge it.

A mental image: a landscape etched into the heart.

A concrete shape to give his sword aura.

If he could not envision it, he would die. Walking the tightrope between life and death, Najin adjusted his grip on his sword. But how? How was he supposed to interpret and understand the vague phrase about putting a mental image into sword aura?

-You don't need to make it complicated.

It was then that Merlin, silent all this time, spoke.

-You already know what to do.

2.

"You've already experienced the catalyst," Merlin said.

"The pure white sword aura you've been able to manifest since the battle with the Demon Knight—that's a fragment of your mental image."

She sat in deep darkness.

This was Najin's inner world, still incomplete.

"A mental image is a landscape you picture in your heart."

When Merlin opened her eyes, which she had kept closed all this time, she saw Najin's inner world... the landscape of his mental image.

"Memories that left a powerful impression on you, things you want to resemble, things you want to possess. Those are what make it up."

When she had first settled here, all she could see was darkness stretching beyond the horizon.

But not anymore.

Merlin could see the landscapes beginning to take their place within Najin's mental image, the landscapes that had begun taking shape after his battle with the Demon Knight. Walking among them, she whispered to him.

"What was your starting point like?"

As though answering her question, the landscape stirred.

What had been only an outline became clear. It was the underground city. The sight of that dark, gloomy city. The place where Merlin walked had transformed into the city at the lowest point in the world.

It spanned barely ten paces.

A landscape etched into a very small area.

It was nowhere near enough to fill this vast space, but for now, it would do. One must not be greedy from the beginning. Merlin continued whispering to Najin.

"What did you want to become? A star, a knight, pride, honor. Dwell on the words lodged in your mind. Try painting them as a landscape."

A light glimmered.

"You told me there was a knight who shone even in the lowest place."

The glimmering light rose in the center of the underground city. It was pure white. A light symbolizing a knight who had kept shining until the very end because he had never lost his pride.

"You swore to that light that you would hang a star in the highest place. Yes, you dreamed of a star in a place where no stars could be seen."

Another light rose.

It glittered high in the sky. A pure white star hung in the lowest place, and a platinum star in the highest. Merlin smiled as she gazed at the two stars supporting Najin's mental image.

"A place where no stars can be seen."

The underground city's landscape grew clearer.

"An oath to a knight who never lost his star."

The low-hanging pure white star flickered fiercely.

"A star shining in the highest place."

The platinum star high above shone brilliantly.

"And what you hold in your hand is a sword. It may not be Excalibur, but does that matter? Excalibur chose you. The Sword of Selection acknowledged you. And you have not one, but two shining stars within you."

"So," Merlin whispered, "if you swing it while envisioning a star, it becomes the Sword of Stars."

Merlin stopped walking.

Before her lay the white star. Flickering fiercely, it suddenly flared. With that momentary flash, the entire surrounding landscape evaporated. But Merlin knew this did not mean it had vanished.

The landscape had merely moved from Najin's inner world onto his sword.

Merlin closed her eyes again. With her eyes shut, she could see the world through Najin's eyes. Through his vision, she looked at the sword in his hand. Pure white sword aura bloomed above it.

There was something starlike about that aura.

The aura, resembling a pure white star, scattered snow-white particles.

3.

The fight would not come to an easy end.

Griffin frowned.

He had even brought out the swordsmanship of the war hero Arta Trigardian, yet contrary to his expectations, the battle only dragged on. The young man was using every means available to evade his sword. Bleeding and destroying his own body, he was buying time.

Griffin would never lose.

But if this went on, he would not be able to complete his mission.

To Griffin, that was no different from defeat. To fulfill his lord's orders under any circumstances—that was what it meant to be a knight. He stamped his raised foot down and advanced toward Najin.

He had to settle this.

And so Griffin called to mind the landscape that formed the foundation of his mental image.

It was a bare thorn tree in the garden of the ducal House Arbenia. The tree had stood in the same spot since Griffin was a child. The knight who had taken him as a squire called it Arbenia's guardian tree.

A thorn tree that had stood there for more than three hundred years.

Griffin had practiced his swordsmanship while gazing at it. As the years passed, his master retired, Griffin became a knight, and he rose to the rank of Sword Seeker and the position of commander.

Decades had passed, but Arbenia's guardian tree still stood in the same place.

Because he had spent decades swinging his sword while looking at that tree, a thorn tree stood tall within Griffin as well. A steadfast giant tree that simply carried out whatever its master desired.

That was Griffin's idea of a knight.

His mental image extended along his sword.

Griffin swung the great tree, now grown even larger—a thorn tree more than five meters long. There was nowhere to run. To prevent Najin from escaping by letting himself be thrown back as before, Griffin swung his sword from above.

And at that moment, Najin, who had been fleeing all this time, stopped in place. Suddenly, he raised his sword before his face. Griffin recognized that movement. It was a stance some knights, including the knights of Atanga, habitually took before raising their sword aura.

A sword salute to steady the mind.

The instant Najin finished the salute, white particles rose from his sword. The aura appeared no different from before, but Griffin sensed a change. Najin's sword aura, which had all but faded, was scattering light again.

Yes.

It was scattering light.

Snow-white particles bloomed around Najin's sword, like a star shining in the night sky. Griffin's eyes widened. This was not merely a cluster of light, but sword aura that had taken shape. That shape was still unstable and incomplete, but the young man's mental image was unmistakably within it.

He had touched a fragment of the Sword Seeker realm.

Cornered, walking the tightrope between life and death, Najin had finally stepped into a realm he had never reached before.

KRRR-SCREEECH!

The red thorn tree and the white star collided.

Until now, Najin's sword had been helplessly driven back. No longer. Scattering particles, his sword sliced through a branch of the red thorn tree.

Only one of its dozens of branches had broken. But what mattered was that it had been cut.

Seeing that he could cut it, Najin opened his eyes wide.

He now had a way to fight back. That meant he could freely employ moves he had been unable to use until now. Najin kicked off the earth and charged Griffin.

SLASH!

Cutting away the great tree's branches, sometimes shedding blood, Najin closed the distance. He had to bleed several times to take a single step, but he did not care. Yet there was one thing Najin had misjudged.

The difference in experience.

Najin had only just touched a fragment of this realm, while Griffin was an accomplished swordsman who had been a Sword Seeker for more than ten years. Though he could not hide his surprise, Griffin kept swinging steadily. He still held the advantage.

The mental image within Najin's sword was slowly evaporating.

His momentum was sharp, but he was still a novice who did not know how to wield a sword imbued with a mental image. That difference in experience decided victory and defeat. Najin fought valiantly, but by the time he reached Griffin, no sword aura remained on his blade.

His time had run out.

'It's over.'

Just as Griffin swung his sword to finish him off, an arrow came flying from somewhere with a piercing whistle.

WHOOOSH!

Griffin's eyes widened, and he swung to knock it aside, but a resounding impact drove both him and his sword backward.

CLANG!

Looking at the arrow embedded in the ground, he could see it belonged to a greatbow no ordinary person's strength could draw.

A famous knight of the marquisal House Trevache came to Griffin's mind. A knight who wielded a greatbow and had reached a level equivalent to a Sword Seeker. This was surely his arrow. A moment later, the hoofbeats of warhorses rang through the forest.

"Halt."

Warhorses drew closer. The voice rang out.

Griffin looked around.

The riders who had arrived were the marquis's knights. Their swords were pointed at him.

They had moved faster than Griffin anticipated, and that meant his defeat. Letting out a long breath, he slowly lowered his sword. With the marquis's knights here, he could not continue fighting.

Just as he was lowering it, he happened to look ahead.

There stood the blood-drenched young man, frozen in the same stance as before. He stood poised to swing his sword, breathing out. Studying that stance, Griffin could only let out a disbelieving laugh.

He possessed neither the ability to glimpse the immediate future nor the talent to predict it from an opponent's movements.

Even so, he had enough knowledge to recognize Najin's stance. It was swordsmanship of the Order of the Sword, optimized for close-range counterattacks. A technique that broke an opponent's stance by striking the hilt, where no sword aura formed.

'At the very last moment, he anticipated his sword aura fading and took a stance to counterattack?'

Even if Griffin had brought his sword down, could he have ended this young man's life?

He could not be certain. And because he could not be certain, he felt a chill. Even if I cannot claim victory, at least I will not lose. That fierce resolve radiated from the young man as he gasped for breath.

"..."

Griffin lowered his sword in silence.

Though they had met as enemies, the young man's fighting spirit deserved respect. Griffin spoke to Najin, who still had not relaxed his stance.

"I am defeated."

Only then did Najin lower his sword. Griffin sighed and looked at the knights surrounding him. Now he would have to fight not with his sword, but with words and justifications.

And that battlefield was one where Griffin stood at a tremendous disadvantage.