Chapter 69
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—The starting bell and the proclamation echoes through the hall.
But there are no cheers.
Everyone stares in silence with bated breath at the two KOGs.
Kenya and Osiris, to decide who will stand at the top.
Osiris was the first to take up his sword.
“Then…”
And so the battle began.
A battle to decide the fate of the world.
“Let’s fight! Ken!”
The thrust is Osiris’ most specialized technique.
His sharp thrusts are so sharp that they can slaughter an ordinary, or even a chief holy knight class, with a single blow.
Even the spectators watching from afar cannot imagine catching the bullet-like force of the thrust.
Many closed their eyes and acknowledged Kenya’s defeat.
The sharpness of the thrust was so great that even screams of fear escaped from the spectators, who felt as if they had been touched by life just by looking at it.
However.
“As expected, this much is too little to stop you…”
It is repelled by Kenya’s two-handed sword.
Kenya stops, his physical strength is just barely enough. He is already wounded all over.
Even so, his body moves on its own. Each cell protecting Kenya with its own ego.
It is now the realm of reflex.
Just like when you touch something hot, your body reacts, and you withdraw your hand faster than you can think.
Hundreds and thousands of battles have been fought, practiced, and trained.
The body already transcends the barriers of human thought.
(Quickly, I have to… guffaw! …I feel like I’m going to lose consciousness.)
Even now, Kenya still coughs up a lot of blood in the cockpit.
The impact load from the maneuver is more than he could have imagined, and Kenya can’t hold it for long now.
The vibrations of the sharp thrusts definitely reduced Kenya’s life.
Therefore.
“I’ll decide! Give it my all!”
Concentrate.
By his own will, it is an extreme state of being, which is easily welcomed by Kenya.
The extreme state of concentration, which can also be called the state of nothingness, easily invited Kenya in.
The door was opened and even the pain was forgotten.
(Concentrate! Move faster than you think!!!)
In the audience, holy knights and chief holy knights rubbing their eyes.
The first-class knights could see it.
Because they could see something from the white aircraft that could be described as its intimidating or oppressive feeling.
Seeing this, Jin and Zoids trembled.
“What pressure… it’s incomparable to when you fought me… it hurts. I’m scared…”
“I don’t know, I don’t know, still… I feel like I’m being hit with an image of defeat that I can feel just by looking at it…”
One of the three heroes, Obelisk, sees this and speaks quietly, not in that loud voice.
“Is that a Domain… I didn’t think you were at that level. Are you saying that Rhode-sama’s knight is beyond measure…?”
“Ugh, I can’t believe that at that age… Ken-kun is already better than me…….”
Lamia Silvana sees it too and understands.
That is sword Domain. I can’t make it out that clearly myself.
The pressure is so overwhelming that just looking at it makes you aware that you will be cut in that place.
“I didn’t think… that it was at a level where you could produce the sword domain.”
But Lamia has seen that.
She had seen that realm, which she called the realm of the sword.
A long time ago, on the battlefield, I saw it for sure.
At that time, it slew all 50 KOGs.
In a desperate situation, that man saved us by crushing through all the enemies.
It was as if a circle was drawn around that person, and as soon as anyone got in between them, they were all killed regardless of who.
Which of us is stronger?”
And Lamia sees.
“Osiris-San’ domain and.”
The KOG in all its red and black disastrousness.
“Well… Fufu, this is the first time I’ve seen it. Is this what everyone else has been seeing? Then how about you? Is this your first time?”
Osiris holds up his sword.
Quietly, slowly and straight at Kenya.
He closes his eyes and regulates his breathing.
At that moment Kenya saw.
“… is this… a space Domain?”
Kenya also sensed, the Domain of Osiris.
From there, he could tell by his intuition that it was a danger zone.
Connecting that range, it was like, a sphere.
The Domain fluctuates around Osiris, like a disastrous sphere.
Having reached its peak, Osiris steps into the same realm as Kenya.
Forcibly, he pried it open with force alone.
The First Class saw.
A Domain can be seen between the two of them.
They could sense the pressure of the Domain between these beings of a different dimension, which only first-class knights could see.
The gap between the two slowly, slowly approached.
The area, which both sides were seeing for the first time, was gradually getting closer, ten meters, then five meters.
And then.
Keen!
They overlap.
Immediately afterwards, a metallic sound echoes in the arena.
The two swordsmen begin a swordfight, their speed so fast that an ordinary human cannot even catch them with his eyes.
“Huh!”
Osiris slashes.
“Ggh!”
Kenya also slashes.
A swordfight of godlike speed, with no time to breathe.
The limits of human reaction speed are exceeded by far.
They are able to meet each other because of their world-class skills, experience, intuition and luck.
“Hahaha! I’ve never been in a situation where someone could stop me like this before!”
“Kuh… strong, really.”
They are similar because it’s a polarized movement, and if the wheels get a little out of kilter, the balance tilts.
(I can’t lose… I have to save the world.)
He grinds his spirit and goes to the extreme of concentration.
So concentrated that the opponent appears to stop, yet I can’t push through.
I can see where the sword is coming from, but no matter where I cut, I am stopped.
It’s the same for the opponent.
How much they cut.
The spectators are sweating their hands.
They are not even allowed to close their eyes; if they blink, the game might be decided at that moment.
The audience was on the edge of their seats.
And Odin, watching this, raises his voice.
“What’s going on! Catherine!”
“T-that’s absurd… with that body, how can you move that much… ah, it’s impossible…”
“You! You said that we would surely win, so I accepted that strategy and approved this fight! If there’s any unlikely scenario… you know what I’m talking about.”
Catherine pales at that statement.
Catherine’s plan was perfect, so what the hell was this?
How could he move so much, his body already dying, and if he didn’t get treatment now, he could die.
I should have pushed him that hard.
“How… how could it move like that…”
Catherine misjudges.
The bottom line of a gamer who was called a cripple.
The power of an awakened knight whose thoughts have already reached the point of reflection.
***
“I can still… still go. I don’t care if it ends here. Don’t let up for even a moment. Even if it all ends here… save the world.”
Kenya concentrates, a sense of omnipotence envelopes Kenya.
“Haha! More, more! I can still dive deeper.”
It’s the same for Osiris, who also feels a sense of omnipotence and shows his best performance.
No, he feels that compared to any of his past experiences, he now surpasses himself, and still.
“You’ll stop this too, right?! If it’s with you! I could go further, much further! Ahhhh!”
Two knights who have perfected the sword.
If they fought in the flesh, Kenya would be cut down in less than a second.
But with KOG.
“I won’t lose! I have to win! If I don’t win here, the world will!”
Kenya speaks of saving the world.
He is deluded by this thought, as if it were his own single core.
All of his youth, most of his life, and since he came to this world.
He has devoted everything to this mastery.
Two swordsmen who have reached the ultimate level, cut each other off.
It takes only a few minutes.
And yet, hundreds of sword jousts are exchanged, and the venue continues to echo with the sound of hard metal.
“What a battle… it’s taking my breath away.”
“How can people react that fast, how can they see something like that and move? Is that really a person…”
“Your father and Ken… are at a stage I don’t understand. Your father must be very happy to have met such a good opponent.”
In the audience, spectators are clutching their hands tightly, forgetting to breathe.
Even the public can see that the fight is being on the pinnacle of this world.
It is not of the same caliber as the annual Imperial Sword and Warrior Festival.
It is a real exchange for life, where the thoughts of what each wants to achieve collide with each other.
The loser loses everything. The winner gains everything.
That’s why I couldn’t lose.
“I… I am!”
So Kenya fights, to defeat this opponent and achieve his thoughts.
The recluse of that world becomes the strongest knight in this world.
“I’m the world…?”
It should have been.
“Gohoho! Gohoho!”
Vomiting blood.
The body’s vital reaction, which had nothing to do with his will.
Concentrating too hard, Kenya forgot to even breathe, holding the blood in his stomach.
The oxygen in his body dropped and the accumulated blood flowed back, enough for his body to scream.
Osiris was not so naive as to miss the opportunity.
It was only a second or so in time, but one second was too much in an extreme exchange.
“Ggh!”
It was too long.
Kenya managed to catch Osiris’ flash in a crumpled position.
It was only because he was in an extreme state of concentration that his body moved on its own and he managed to guard himself.
However, he is blown away by the impact, loses his stance, and crashes into the wall right next to the spectators’ seats.
In response.
“What’s the matter, you’ve lost your Domain? …Why, suddenly?”
“!!”
When Osiris tries to follow up, he notices that any pressure from Kenya has disappeared.
Although there was an impact, it was guarded, so there should have been no problem.
Besides, he showed a clear gap earlier, to the point where it was obvious that something had happened.
In fact, Kenya was unconscious at this time.
The impact had reaped the consciousness he had been enduring with a thin thread, as if he was about to lose it originally.
(Was that vomiting blood? A trap? That can’t be it. It shouldn’t be that type… then in that case, malfunction trouble? No… no way.)
Osiris is puzzled for a moment and looks at Odin.
There is no response from Kenya, and all possibilities are going through Osiris’ mind.
Heartbreakingly, he also hears over the KOG that Kenya’s voice was muffled.
(I see… that’s how it is.)
Osiris tied everything together.
And the reason why the training was proposed, which was clearly intended to isolate him for a week.
Osiris is disappointed to realize the facts.
He is awakened by the sword, loves the sword, lives by the sword, and dies by the sword.
The sword saint who has made up his mind to do so awakens one day on the battlefield, and no longer has any enemies in the world.
The Sword Saint has ascended to the top.
He wanted to see the view before anyone else.
The place he had been aiming for, the place he had been longing for, when he stood there.
I couldn’t help it. I was just lonely.
When I looked around, there was no one around me, and the friends I had climbed up with were no longer there.
I was no longer able to ride the KOG that I had loved and trained so passionately as before.
Still.
I continued to smolder my fading fighting spirit, waiting for an opponent who would one day rekindle it.
And today, I finally met my greatest rival.
An enemy who stood so high that I thought I couldn’t reach even if I put my life on the line to fight him.
I truly enjoyed it. I felt alive, finally, and I was happy.
And yet.
It was interrupted by an outsider.
It was enough to disappoint and mortify Him.
However, Osiris still holds up his sword.
(Sorry. Still, I will not and cannot cut any corners. I’m sorry, but… forgive me, this is war.)
Osiris then holds up his sword.
The stance is the same decisive move of Osiris as in the beginning.
However, its sharpness is nothing compared to the first, which is a lethal technique that conjures up images of death just from the stance alone.
“Farewell, Ken. I wish I could have fought more. With you, I’m sure I can see what lies ahead.”
A thrust with that spear-like sword that Osiris is best known for.
“…you definitely are.”
Its red and black bullets head straight for Kenya.
“You were the strongest knight I’ve ever seen.”
To kill Kenya.