The Second Salvation Myth of a Retired Regressed Hero

“No, you mustn’t, Sir Mage!”

Ignoring their screams of dissuasion, Doyun landed on the ground.

One imp was gradually tearing off flesh from a still living soldier it had pinned down. Though the soldier convulsed in agony, the imp snickered at his pitiful state.

But then, it sensed a sudden presence right before it.

“Kkrruk?”

The imp looked up at this unexpected movement devoid of hostile intent or killing aura.

Thwack-

“Kke, eck…”

A sword plunged into its neck with a dull thud.

Doyun frowned. He had intended to fully sever the neck, but it was far sturdier than expected – the sword had only pierced halfway through. His physical output wasn’t what it used to be either.

Despite half its neck cut, the imp didn’t die, twitching its neck muscles and eyes. It even gripped the embedded sword with trembling hands.

But Doyun didn’t just watch. While the sword remained lodged, he forcefully pushed down on the hilt.

Crunch-!

Like unscrewing a lid, the imp’s neck tore off upwards. No blood spurted forth.

Only then did it collapse lifelessly to the ground.

“Kkerruk?”
“Kkuk?”

Two nearby imps turned their gazes towards Doyun. They soon charged at him simultaneously – one leaping swiftly with outstretched, sharp fingertips, the other lowering its body to target his ankles.

A fluid, coordinated assault – instinctive movements distinctly different from mere monsters.

Doyun held his sword upright, slashing through the gap between the outstretched fingers.

“Kkeeeeck!”

The imp shrieked in agony.

Again, he had intended to slice through both arms from the elbow down vertically, but only managed up to the wrists despite aiming for the relatively soft flesh between the fingers.

The imp below lashed out with clawed fingers towards Doyun’s Achilles tendon. But its attack harmlessly passed through the non-existent shape of his ankle, leaving it unscathed.

“Kkrruk?”

In that instant, sword strikes too fast to perceive slashed across the ground and the imp’s neck. By sheer instinct, it leapt backwards, but a straight line had already been carved from its crown to groin.

Only in its moment of bisection did the imp notice the ground it had evaded – in addition to the horizontal slash aimed at its neck, a vertical slash had been made as well.

Războlnic Willow Sword Arts – Kana Slash

The horizontal slash it had sensed and evaded was a feint. The true attack had been the unperceivable vertical slash, incorporating localized acceleration control.

“Kkrreeeeck!!”

The imp still agonizing over its severed arms, maddened with fury, thrust forward with its remaining hand. This time, seeming to anticipate the previous assault, its fingers clung together as one sharp spear-like limb, brimming with reckless force aiming to impale Doyun’s head.

Doyun gripped the sword hilt with his right hand and braced the pommel with his left, thrusting the blade upward. With the pinnacle of swordsmanship’s precision, the sword tip met the imp’s fingertips squarely.

Thrusting the blade to meet the tip of incoming thrusting swords or spears, redirecting the full force of the thrust back into the opponent’s grip.

Buske’s Style Swordsmanship – Counter Thrust

Crunch-

The imp’s wrist shattered, its outstretched shoulder knocked back, the entire arm ripped away. Carried by its own forward inertia, it presented its neck to Doyun’s sword.

Again, the blade only pierced halfway through its neck. Doyun pushed down on the hilt once more, severing its head.

In an instant, three out of eighteen had been dispatched.

Only then did the remaining imps sense something amiss, turning wary gazes towards Doyun. The knight, squire, and soldiers on the walls also stared wide-eyed.

‘What just happened…?’

Those vicious demons had been slain in a flash, three already dead. Fluid, natural movements, at times flickering like streaks of light. Truly formidable prowess.

‘Wasn’t he… a mage?’

In many ways, their very eyes struggled to believe what they had witnessed.

Doyun stood amidst the imps and soldiers, examining the blade’s edge. It was already severely chipped and beginning to corrode, emitting black smoke.

‘Their durability and curses emanating from their bodies have grown stronger too.’

While the curses had ravaged the sword’s condition, fortunately they didn’t affect Doyun’s body – likely the same principle that had blocked the Minister of Finance’s curse.

Doyun formed a finger guard with two left fingers, channeling his mana to the tips. Then, he swiftly dragged his fingers along the blade, crimson flames flickering as the severely damaged edge was partially restored.

The imps narrowed their eyes, slithering closer to Doyun with a far warrier caution than their earlier playful demeanor.

Suddenly halting their assault, the infantry troops who had been thrashing in hell raised their heads in puzzlement.

The sight that greeted them was the three imp corpses sprawled on the ground. The remaining demons standing in a tense circle formation. And in their midst, the solemn figure of a savior.

‘I can’t handle multiple foes without sword aura.’

Doyun’s mana circulated through his body, his golden irises shimmering brilliantly.

‘No, even with sword aura, it would be precarious.’

With his limited mana reserves, maintaining sword aura wouldn’t be sustainable.

But the enemy outnumbered him. Even now, instead of immediately swarming him, they were spreading out to encircle and surround him like seasoned hunters gradually cornering their prey. If he confronted them at their pace, his mana would deplete first.

‘…Should I use that?’

It seemed wiser to expend all his remaining mana in one decisive strike.

An incredibly mana-intensive technique, but his Divine Beast’s pure mana was inherently efficient, allowing him one usage.

And if Doyun’s speculation was correct, his [First Războlnic] trait would support this endeavor.

Fifteen imps encircled Doyun at regular intervals, completing their surrounding formation. Five of them then advanced forward to launch a combined assault.

Boundless attacks with fingers, claws, fangs, and tails crisscrossed towards him, but Doyun evaded and deflected them all. His Seventh Sense already dominated the battlefield, detecting attacks from his blindspots as well.

As the imps relentlessly assailed Doyun, at some point, a golden flash manifested before their necks began separating one by one. Two had already perished.

Startled by their comrades slain by unseen attacks, the imps swiftly retreated.

Deeming this futile, they immediately committed the remaining ten to the fray as well.

Despite how complex combined assaults appeared, through sheer instinctive combat sense, the thirteen imps fluidly coordinated their limbs in a seamless offensive.

At this point, even Doyun reached his limits. While his senses effortlessly detected all attacks and devised efficient evasion paths, his body couldn’t keep up, accumulating wounds one by one.

Doyun caught a sharp tail whipping towards his eyes with his hand. But as the imp yanked its tail back, Doyun’s footing left the ground.

‘Tch…’

The imp lashed its tail, flinging Doyun’s body high into the air.

‘Their strength has increased too.’

Doyun’s current Strength stat of 5 ranked among the higher tiers for disciples. Yet he had been overwhelmed in that contest of force.

Seizing this chance, the imps simultaneously leapt into the air. With Doyun airborne, he couldn’t evade – the imps snickered as they stretched out claws, fangs, and tails towards their helpless target.

‘I have to end this in one strike after all.’

First, he needed to plant his feet on the ground.

Doyun looked down, wrapping the sword behind his back like preparing a pitch. His Divine Beast’s pure mana concentrated in his arm and hand before overflowing, channeled through the sword’s hilt.

A technique reminiscent of a rapidly lunging shark – explosively releasing mana through the blade to propel it with instantaneous drawing speed, the resulting sword aura providing the driving force.

But now, that propulsive force would thrust not just the sword, but Doyun’s entire body.

Buske’s Style Swordsmanship – Barracuda

An eruption of sword aura behind him propelled his body and blade at tremendous speed.

Shrick-

“Kkerruk?”

A golden trail manifested in the air as three imp heads and bodies separated in an instant. The imps’ eyes widened, their target having vanished as more comrades inexplicably perished.

And before they could even land from their leap, Doyun had already planted his feet on the ground.

He looked up towards the sky.

His Seventh Sense precisely analyzed the arcing trajectories of the imps leaping overhead. Soon, a straight sword path emerged to pierce through all ten of them.

Gripping the hilt tightly, Doyun prepared his final strike.

In the 17th iteration’s climactic battle against the Demon Lord.

Enoch had forced the Demon Lord on the defensive, leaving it no choice but to unleash its ultimate technique.

Then, Enoch had viscerally understood what it meant to reach the divine realm.

In that final moment, it had set foot in the celestial plane. All surrounding mana responded to its will, and that will manifested the phenomenon of ‘Death’ itself.

The plane where mere willpower created phenomenon from nothingness. That had been the Demon Lord’s transcendent pinnacle, nearing divinity.

Having experienced that fatal attack firsthand, in his moment of death, Enoch had sublimated it into an epiphany.

‘What is sword aura?’

When a sword sage achieved complete mind-body unification and accumulated sufficient mana, their bodily mana would flow along the blade’s surface. This had been the conventional concept of sword aura.

But Doyun approached it differently. He recalled the sight of the Demon Lord manipulating mana solely through its will.

‘Sword aura is an expansion of the phenomenon ‘to cut’.’

Using the mana flowing through one’s body as a medium to expand the phenomenon of ‘cutting’. Imposing one’s will upon the world through the sword. Thereby exponentially amplifying a sword strike’s range and cutting power. That was the true essence of sword aura.

This epiphany elevated the 17th iteration Enoch, already on par with the Sword Saint and Sword King, to an entirely new level of transcendence.

An enlightenment returning to the origin of all sword arts, fundamentally different from conventional sword methods.

‘Războlnic Willow Sword Arts – Supreme Principle’

The Sword Saint had witnessed this and bestowed the name:

‘Manifest Sword’

The knight, squire, soldiers on the walls, even the fallen infantry troops – all opened their eyes wide to the brilliant golden radiance illuminating the darkness.

‘Slay the Demon’

As the sword traced its path, a crescent-shaped sword aura advanced with sharp, intense force.

His resolute will to exterminate demons expanded the phenomenon of ‘cutting’ through mana as the medium.

‘Ah…’

The knight’s mouth fell open at the profound, breathtaking sword path, the straight golden sword aura extending forth.

His blade’s reach was a mere 1 meter at most.

But his will cut down the demons suspended in the air.