Episode 20: Empire (8)
Irena’s first strike was a direct thrust.
From a low, crescent-shaped stance, she drove the spear forward, aiming slightly below my torso, targeting my abdomen.
I raised my sword vertically, deflecting the thrust. Angling the blade to minimize friction, I parried the incoming spear.
I shifted one foot diagonally, leaning to the side.
Lowering my sword, I kept my center of gravity steady.
Irena followed with three rapid thrusts—straight, low, and a high diagonal.
The spear’s shaft and grip rotated freely, disorienting my vision.
I blocked the first thrust head-on, sidestepped the second, and for the third, tilted my sword to flick her spear upward.
A spear’s strength lies in its relentless flow and reach, crashing like unbroken waves.
Even when deflected, she redirected the recoil into her own rhythm.
With subtle adjustments to her grip, she maintained control of the assault.
She swung the spear shaft, then slashed horizontally.
Her inhuman strength pushed me back even without a direct hit.
A gust of wind, as if upheaving the training ground, accompanied her charge.
A sweeping horizontal slash arced in a semicircle, using the spear shaft as its axis.
She reclaimed the recoil from her previous thrusts, chaining into a seamless combo.
Twisting the misaligned force with raw power, she accelerated further.
The curved trajectory of her spear targeted my right shoulder.
Her speed-based strategy would dominate an unprepared opponent.
But we knew each other too well.
I focused on a habit even Irena might not notice: the brief moment her wrist twisted oppositely after the spear’s joint rotated. In that 0.4-second window, I moved.
I launched off the ground, accelerating thrice with irregular flicks of my knees, ankles, and toes.
Before her thrust could pierce me, I closed the distance.
My left hand pushed her spear-holding hand aside, and I thrust my sword, gripped in reverse, straight at her.
Sensing she’d been outmaneuvered, Irena’s presence shifted.
An explosion of Aura burst from her, twisting the trajectory of my thrust aimed at her neck.
Unfazed by the blade grazing her throat, she kicked my body.
Swiftly, Irena flipped the spear behind her waist, securing it.
She pushed off her left heel, spinning counterclockwise.
Using the centrifugal force from her waist, she swung the spear in a wide arc.
The circular strike, laden with rotational weight and recoil, surged with immense Aura, crashing like a wave.
I summoned my Wave energy, weaving two streams around my blade to counter her Aura.
As I slashed downward, I twisted my wrist and fingers in opposite directions.
A sound like snapping threads rang out, and a circular shockwave erupted from my sword’s tip, punching a hole through her Aura.
Through that gap, Irena’s pupils widened.
Hiding my sword behind my back, I stomped my left foot, unleashing an upward crescent slash.
Sword and spear clashed. The spear shaft reverberated, and my blade grazed the inner muscle of Irena’s right arm.
I pursued Irena as she retreated without countering.
Fully syncing with my Wave, I unleashed dozens of streams toward her.
My blade slashed horizontally, vertically, and in rapid succession, weaving a relentless assault.
Irena could see the Wave too. She countered, thrusting and slashing her spear to parry my streams.
Her movements carried momentum, but each strike bent at the end, throwing off my defensive angles and forcing errors.
Once, twice, thrice—each time she raised her spear vertically to block, I angled diagonally, slicing her wrist or disrupting her shoulder alignment.
Dozens of Wave streams flickered in and out of my vision per second.
Initially, Irena tried to match my thrusts, but soon gave up, detonating her Aura explosively.
The Wave was my domain; she knew she couldn’t win with it.
Wave and Aura collided, forming a massive shockwave.
My Wave surged like blue lightning, while her Aura froze the training ground with the chill of the north.
A deadlock, evenly matched.
Yet, I steadily gained the upper hand through calculated exchanges, stacking small victories.
Boom!
A sword strike, wrapped in indigo Wave energy, slammed into Irena’s spear shaft.
Sparks of residual Wave lingered at the impact point.
Despite her block, the bone-rattling force lifted her body into the air.
Her arms, unable to fully absorb the shock, recoiled upward.
“…!!”
One successful strike was enough to end it.
I gathered my Wave, recreating the blow that killed Erebeon.
Weaving dozens of scattered streams into one, the trajectory wavered, but the core remained fixed in a straight line.
Only one trajectory remained at the tip of my sword.
A step forward.
I drew the blade back and thrust it forward.
The air compressed and burst, a strange force enveloping Irena’s body.
It wasn’t a thrust aimed at her—rather, it felt as if she were being pulled along its path.
As Irena gritted her teeth, channeling all her Aura into defense, a dark Wave surged, piercing the training ground’s open ceiling and scattering the looming clouds.
The thrust narrowly missed Irena, grazing her right shoulder.
Her Aura shattered into fragments, and she crashed onto the training ground floor.
I caught her falling body. Though the thrust hadn’t connected, her clothing was torn.
Before the dust settled, silence swept in.
The knights, their breaths shallow from tension, realized they’d been holding their breath.
“Did you… see that?”
“Can we even call that a spar?”
“That last move… it wasn’t just movement. It was like space itself was pulled in.”
“The commander couldn’t even react in that stance… how?”
“They’re both inhuman, aren’t they?”
Belatedly, thunderous applause erupted. The awestruck faces of the trainees clashed with the shock of knights witnessing their commander’s defeat.
Amid the cheers, I looked at Irena. Her torn clothing revealed her right arm.
“…This is…”
Her right arm bore fine, web-like scars, faintly glowing red.
The darkened marks were clearly abnormal, but they weren’t signs of beast transformation.
‘…Is beast transformation nonexistent, or suppressed for some reason?’
Franz Eldin, despite not being handsome in the original story, had become so here, and showed no signs of beast transformation.
I’d considered the possibility of internal corruption, but seeing Irena’s condition lowered that likelihood.
Regardless of my thoughts, Irena covered her arm with her left hand and answered.
“It’s not a severe injury.”
“Then what is it? How could it be this…”
“It’s an injury from five years ago, as you saw, just worsened during the Erebeon campaign.”
Worsened? No minor injury would look like this.
Having been wounded countless times on the battlefield, I knew. This was severe—embarrassingly so to call it merely an injury.
“The front needs me.”
Words failed me. I forced my voice out.
“What about retirement? Aren’t you going to retire?”
“I was going to talk about that. And there’s something I need to confess to you.”
Irena stepped down from my arms. I draped my coat over her shoulders.
Amid the roaring cheers, our quiet conversation continued.
“There’s something I didn’t tell you. The rumors about your fiancée on the front? They probably started because of me.”
“…?”
What did she mean? Why would rumors about my fiancée be tied to her?
“Before recruiting you to the special forces, I looked into your background. I found out you were Ian Baltazar and that you’d fled after a broken engagement.”
So the rumors spread during her investigation? That aside, I found something in her words to correct.
“Well, I was Baltazar, but I didn’t go to the front because of a broken engagement.”
Irena chuckled.
“I thought you went there to die from the shock of a broken engagement. Guess not.”
Her question reminded me of our first meeting. She’d asked, “Did you come here to die?”
So that’s what she meant. As I was about to respond, she continued.
“And after you joined the front, some people were looking for you. More precisely, for Ian Baltazar, not Ian Valencia.”
She paused, looking at me with serious eyes.
“Soon after, Duke Nordelheim spread the rumor that Ian Baltazar was dead.”
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