* * *

SHRRRRK.

Hundreds of threads stream from slender fingertips as white as jade rings. Imbued with psionics purer and more powerful than that of hundreds of ordinary Seven Dragons Society experts combined, the threads intertwine in midair to form tigers.

Like living creatures, two enormous tigers kick off the ceiling framework and charge.

SH slash!

A streak of sword light pierces the two beasts, either of which could have torn a tank to shreds. A single stroke beheads both tigers as they attack from either side—the technique of one who has reached the pinnacle of the sword.

With their heads severed, the threads lose their shapes and unravel.

But that is an illusion. The seemingly unraveling threads weave themselves into intricate patterns in midair once more, forming ten wolves in the blink of an eye.

As though hunting prey under their leader's command, seven wolves leap at Limon in perfect unison. Four aim to seize his wrists and ankles in their jaws, two launch themselves at his torso from front and back, and one targets his throat to finish him off.

THUD-THUD-THUD.

But Limon remains unruffled. Spinning in place like a top, he cleaves four wolves in two. He twists sideways and bends backward to evade the two charging his torso, beheading them with a simple diagonal draw of his sword. Then he drives the point between the eyes of the wolf lunging for the opening.

At the same time, he steps forward.

TAP, TAP, TAP.

The three wolves that had been trying to kill Tata while he fought the others are split apart, one with each step. The threads that formed them intertwine again, attempting to take new shapes, but Limon pays them no heed.

He simply charges straight toward Ainsha, who is controlling them.

Perhaps because she has no time to weave intricate shapes against his lightning-fast charge, Ainsha swiftly draws the threads back to form a thick barrier and five spears.

The barrier, capable of easily deflecting artillery shells, blocks his path, while the spears, capable of piercing a bunker in a single blow, all target his vital points.

SH slash!

But that is all they accomplish. As though such hastily assembled toys could never stop him, Limon splits the barrier with one stroke, then slowly traces a circle in the air with his sword.

The five spears stop dead in midair like petals caught in a spiderweb, then follow his sword tip and shoot back toward Ainsha.

Ainsha instantly disperses her psionics and dissolves the spears. Her response is swift, but not swift enough. By the time she scatters them, Limon is already right before her.

His blade immediately shoots forward. Terrifyingly fast in its simplicity, the thrust drives toward Ainsha's thigh without leaving her even time to blink.

CLANG!

A spread of fabric stops the blade. The cheap five-thousand-won cardigan Limon bought her becomes an impregnable fortress for that instant, blocking a Sword Master's sword capable of piercing a five-hundred-billion-won warship.

Still, Limon is not disappointed. As though he expected her to block it, he attacks again without a moment's hesitation.

Ainsha is equally composed. With an expressionless face, she swings her cardigan against the chilling storm of sword light.

And so the melee begins.

BAM-BAM-BAM-BAM!

She wraps the cardigan around his swinging sword to block it while twisting slightly and extending a leg toward his abdomen. Limon deftly extracts his sword from the cardigan's tight grip and intercepts the kick.

The instant it touches her foot, a whirlpool-like twisting force seeps along the blade, seeking to snap his wrist. He disperses it with a light flick of the sword tip.

His counterattack comes simultaneously: dozens of successive sword strikes that deftly avoid her vital points while targeting places where wounds would impede her movement.

Ainsha defends against the storm-like barrage with her cardigan while channeling her psionics through the Celestial Maiden Wave Style.

CLANG-CLANG-CLANG!

The cardigan flutters like a celestial maiden's winged robe, yet repels his sword like waves powerful enough to push back an enormous ship. With every collision, his sword grows faster and the cardigan's surges grow larger and stronger.

When those surges reach their peak, a wave of psionics erupts from the cardigan. As Limon cleaves it head-on, the cardigan sweeps forward in an undulating motion, its hem slamming into his chest.

BOOM!

It is only a thin cardigan, yet the psionics of the Iron-Robed Long Garment Style and Celestial Maiden Wave Style send Limon sliding backward as though struck by a mace.

But a cold smile, not dismay, appears on his face. And as Ainsha stares expressionlessly at her cardigan, now cut in half, and her blue-bruised arm, one question rises in her mind.

'Why?'

Limon had exploited the brief opening when she combined the psionics of two martial schools to attack, striking her arm and slicing through her cardigan. His skill was astonishing, but not inexplicable.

He was none other than the Sword Lord, the Seven Dragons Society's greatest nemesis.

Watching Ainsha stop moving over a question she still could not answer, Limon spoke quietly.

"You still don't understand? Why you can't read my future?"

"..."

Ainsha flinched. Limon chuckled at her body's honest reaction, so unlike her still-expressionless face.

"Nothing to be surprised about. It's just a simple trick."

"That is impossible."

"No, it isn't."

How could a mere trick block precognition? Flatly rejecting Ainsha's involuntary objection, Limon continued in a languid voice.

"Because it's a trick the Sword Emperor learned while fighting your founders, the seven dragons."

"...!"

Perhaps because his words were so utterly unexpected, Ainsha's eyes wavered. Limon mercilessly exploited that instant and swung his sword.

Even in her agitation, Ainsha moved reflexively to meet his attack.

With one hand, she swung the remaining half of her cardigan to counter his sword; with the other, she attacked with countless beasts and deadly weapons fashioned from hundreds of threads. Her peculiar, circular movements diverted his offense, while she spun like a whirlpool and kicked to counterattack and interrupt his flow.

Her movements were nothing short of wondrous. Using the principles of all manner of martial schools as the situation demanded, she lived up to her standing as the White Dragon Clan's strongest expert.

Yet Ainsha had no room to breathe. Indeed, sweat trickled down her expressionless face.

She reads a future in which her wrist is cut.

But it misses the mark.

She reads a future in which she strikes Limon.

But it disappears.

She reads a future in which she blocks his sword.

But it becomes tangled.

At first, only Limon's future had been invisible to her. But as the close-quarters fight continued, each time she met his sword, even her own future grew hazier. That realization shook her.

'I hate this. It is horrible.'

To a prophet like her, it was terror. The sensation was worse than going blind and deaf in real time while her limbs fell away bit by bit.

That was why Ainsha forcibly shook Limon off and drew up her psionics. It was not a calculated decision to finish the fight quickly because she was finding it increasingly difficult to know which move to make next.

The overwhelming desperation to escape this sensation even a moment sooner drove her to take a risk.

She overlaps her hands and gives a thousand threads form with the psionics of the Heavenly Net Shaping Style. Pulling them taut, she adds a resilience greater than steel through the Iron-Robed Long Garment Style, then plucks the taut threads to infuse them with the oscillations of the Celestial Maiden Wave Style.

She wraps the middle of the threads around her ankle, imparting the rotational force of the Spiral Sinking Leg Style, then presses them beneath her toes to add the suppleness of the Supreme Ultimate Flowing Movement Style.

The psionics of five martial schools mingle within the thousand threads, amplifying one another again and again. At that moment, from the thousand threads crossing and intertwining a thousand times each in midair, a single shape bursts forth in an explosion of brilliant white light.

『Seventy-Two Martial Schools, Fifth Supreme Technique

Seventy-Two Martial Schools, Fifth Supreme Technique

The Dragon King's Reign

The Dragon King's Reign』

RUMMMMMBLE.

It is a marvel: a white dragon filling the ceiling, so exquisitely detailed that it is hard to believe it was woven from thin threads alone.

But it is no mere beautiful ornament. The waves of psionics pouring from the dragon whenever it writhes, and the studio shaking as though struck by an earthquake, prove that.

"Whoa! What is this? An e-earthquake?"

"M-more importantly, what is that? Special effects? Was anything like that planned?"

Perhaps because the spectacle and its effects are so dramatic, the hosts, staff, and audience, who have remained oblivious until now, look up at the ceiling.

But Limon is neither surprised nor flustered. He merely draws his sword back at an angle in both hands and lets out a bemused chuckle.

"A dragon, of all things, before me... How amusing."

Long, long ago, the Sword Emperor, the first Sword Master, fought almost single-handedly against the seven dragons and the Seven Dragons Society that ruled the world.

His greatest obstacle was none other than their precognition. They could find him wherever he fled and foresee his attacks whenever he launched them, stifling the very will to resist.

Yet precisely because of that, through repeated attacks and retreats, the Sword Emperor gradually learned the trick to fighting those with precognitive abilities. As he fought the seven dragons, that trick accumulated principles and became a coherent technique.

"Then I, too, shall show you."

An intent of the sword that could be learned only by the two disciples who faced dragons beside the Sword Emperor, fought on the same battlefields, and were drenched in dragon blood alongside him.

Principles that no subsequent Sword Master had ever managed to master, and that, after one of those two died, remained in the memory of only the surviving Sword Master.

Across the vast stretch of time, the Sword Emperor's last disciple awakened that swordsmanship, no longer preserved even in legend.

"What a sword that slew dragons truly is."

『Demon-Cleaving Dragon-Slaying Sword: Original Form

Demon-Cleaving Dragon-Slaying Sword: Original Form

I'll Kill Every Last Dragon Bastard.

Dragon Slaying』

And so the writhing dragon opens its maw and flies at Limon. The instant he extends his sword toward it—

—the world's future splits apart.

* * *

"...!"

Ainsha catches her breath.

It is not merely because the dragon, imbued with enough force to crush a mountain, is being torn to shreds like meat in a grinder. It is because she alone can see exactly what Limon is doing.

The future splits. One fixed future becomes two. Two incomplete futures become four. Then eight, then sixteen.

Every time Limon swings his sword, her visions split apart, and tens of thousands, hundreds of millions of futures swirl like a storm.

'Th-this is...'

What he is cutting is not merely a dragon's shape or psionics. Just as he had shattered Tata's precognition by building up processes and causes, the principles of the sword he had steadily accumulated by reading Ainsha's thoughts and seeing through her movements are becoming an overwhelming reality, cutting through flimsy futures.

Only then does Ainsha understand how natural it is that precognition does not work on Limon. For someone who can create infinite possibilities simply by swinging his sword, there is no such thing as a predetermined future.

At the same time, she realizes that this is truly the Sword Emperor's sword: the sword that creates its own future, wielded by the superhuman who faced the seven dragons with only two disciples and finally brought the Bronze Age to an end.

Knowing this, her ancestors had never confronted Limon, only fled from him.

But by the time she realizes it, Limon's sword has already cut the dragon apart completely and is reaching toward her.

Overwhelmed by the sword of an absolute being that can sever even the future, Ainsha is about to meet the blade without offering any resistance when—

"Your Highness!"

SH slash!

A figure throws itself between her and the blade. Bright red blood sprays through the air and wets Ainsha's cheek as she stands frozen, her eyes wide.