Chapter 43

Reincarnated as the Sword Emperor in the Sword Saint Family (43)

In a situation where an A3-ranked monster attempted to converse, Leonard's eyes widened in surprise at the unexpected turn of events. However, his surprise was short-lived, and he replied with a calm expression.

"You can speak human language. Are you going to beg for your life?"

The manticore did not answer his question but instead glanced somewhere far away and responded in a leisurely tone.

"If, we, fight, I, will, die, to, you."

"Of course."

"But, I, won't, die, easily. If, it, takes, too, long, he, will, come."

"...He?"

Leonard's eyebrows twitched involuntarily. It was a matter he could not ignore. The fear in the manticore's voice, an A3-ranked monster of the Demon Realm, was unmistakable.

"These, things, and, you, are, incomparably, strong."

There was only one such powerful being among the Shadow Knights who had infiltrated the Galapagos Island: the fifth Shadow, a Sword Master who had reached the Transcendent Realm.

While Leonard shouldn't entirely trust the manticore's words, monsters have senses far superior to humans, sometimes by tens of times. It wouldn't be surprising if an A-rank monster could detect the power of a Sword Master from dozens of kilometers away.

'If I encounter him while fighting this manticore...the chances of survival would be slimmer than a needle's eye.'

Was it the truth, or a lie?

If it was the truth, he should avoid the fight. If it was a lie, he should cut off the manticore's head for deceiving him. However, the latter was unnecessary. On the contrary, if he chose the former, his death would be certain.

Numerous possibilities crossed Leonard's mind.

However.

"If, you, want, to, fight, that's, good. Whenever, you, want, just, come, at, me."

The manticore's eyes turned a deep crimson, and a massive aura erupted from its battered body. Despite having no fatal wounds, it had several severe injuries, indicating it wasn't an easy opponent to take down.

Squeal.

The twin swords, one black and one white, emitted a brilliant light. Leonard, ready to strike at any moment, his spirit and body prepared, glared with murderous intent.

"..."

"..."

The standoff between human and monster lasted for several minutes, but both eventually relaxed their combat stances. The manticore's sensitive senses detected the subsiding of Leonard's killing intent.

"You should thank your tongue. It saved your life."

Sheathing both swords, Leonard extended his hand. The swords he had used in the initial ambush, which were embedded in the ground far away, were drawn to his grasp.

Telekinesis.

A technique using spirit and will to pull distant objects. Leonard stored the two swords in his spatial pocket and glared at the manticore with a displeased expression.

"Next time, I'll kill you."

"Sure, yeah. Hah, hah, hah."

Leonard wanted to spit on the manticore's smirking face but restrained himself and turned away.

One step.

Two steps.

Three steps.

As he gradually moved away, the manticore, with a sinister smile, spoke.

An ability that couldn't be detected by spiritual senses.

Roar——!

The manticore, a Demon Realm monster, unleashed a full-throated roar behind Leonard. The sound wave attack, exploding at close range, reached him in an instant. Reflexively placing his hand on the sword hilt, Leonard froze as the manticore approached.

The manticore had planned this from the start.

"Stupid, human. You, forgot, my, roar."

The manticore approached with a triumphant air, intending to crush Leonard's head as before. Its tail, adorned with venomous spines, rose up.

One strike would end it.

Accelerating like a whip, the tail broke the sound barrier. Even if Leonard desperately used his spirit to defend, the impact would be impossible to withstand.

"Die."

The tail, swung like a club, aimed for Leonard's skull. Leonard had been waiting for this moment.

From the start.

Five Elephant Style

Black Tortoise Nine Techniques

Great Moon Reverse Yin Mirror

A black lightning bolt shot from Leonard's waist, tracing a circular path and twisting the manticore's tail in an unusual direction. This technique, characteristic of the Black Tortoise Thirty-Six Techniques, distorted the opponent's attack to create an opening.

The next technique was, of course:

Five Elephant Style

A white sword light rose from the opposite waist.

White Tiger Sixteen Techniques

Heaven-Breaking Demon-Subduing

It shattered the heavens and subdued demons. The power of the sword energy rising from below was terrifying, a technique that could be counted among the top three in the White Tiger Techniques in terms of destructive power. Though difficult to use due to its vulnerability during execution, it was devastating when unleashed.

Crack!

The manticore's face shattered, its brain and blood splattering everywhere. Even with its head tilted back, it narrowly avoided a fatal blow.

Screaming, the manticore leaped back and shouted.

"How! I, took, your, roar!"

"There's nothing you can't block if you're prepared. I've faced sound attacks before, to the point of being sick of them."

Leonard replied calmly.

The manticore's roar was indeed powerful, but it could be countered like a sound attack. The terrifying aspect of sound attacks is their vibrational nature. Even with a protective aura, the vibrations would penetrate and cause internal injuries or disrupt balance. Young Wu Xie had once been severely injured by a sound attack and retreated.

Over several weeks, Wu Xie reflected on his defeat and developed a method to counter sound attacks.

'To block a vibrating force, you must vibrate as well.'

By making the protective aura vibrate, the vibrations created by the opponent would be neutralized. Even if not completely eliminated, the vibrations would collapse, nullifying the sound attack's effect.

The manticore's roar had never affected him from the start.

"Did, you, know, I, would, attack?"

Leonard's attitude revealed the truth to the manticore.

"Lying too much just makes you better at it. Do you really think I'd be fooled by a beast?"

His response was indifferent.

'Compared to the tricks of the underworld, yours are quite cute.'

The righteous, the evil, and the demonic.

Wu Xie, who belonged to none of these factions, frequently clashed with the underworld (Black Path). These were groups that pursued only profit in the gap between the righteous and the evil, operating outside the law and ethics, fulfilling their twisted desires. They were a horde of human scum who betrayed even their own kin. Wu Xie, who had lived by their blood, would not be deceived by a monster.

"I was going to let you live if you didn't attack, but now I can kill you easily. Got it?"

As Leonard extended his twin swords, the manticore, with only half its face remaining, sighed.

"...I, dug, my, own, grave."

The mouth is the gate of disaster, and the tongue is the knife that cuts the body.

Recalling this old saying, Leonard began to channel his spirit.

Five Elephant Style, Two Swords

White Tiger One Technique

Mountain-Cleaving

Drenching the twin swords in white, he charged forward. The manticore, aiming to counter, released the remaining venomous spines from its tail, but with one eye missing, its aim and distance were off. Leonard broke through the unstable barrage and crossed his swords.

Crack!

One of the manticore's front legs was crushed, spraying blood as it rolled on the ground. Instead of losing its head, it sacrificed a leg.

However, Leonard wasn't about to stop there.

Five Elephant Style, Three Swords

White Tiger Extra Technique

Three Blades Form a Tiger, Flying

After throwing the two swords in his hands, he drew the remaining sword from his waist and threw it as well.

Three white swords.

Three sword blades, shimmering with White Tiger energy, pierced the manticore's body, tearing it apart.

One pierced the lung.

One pierced the heart.

The last one pierced the remaining half of its head.

"..."

Exhausted from using nearly half his inner power, Leonard wiped the sweat from his forehead and caught his breath. He had pushed himself a bit by improvising a powerful technique. Combining multiple attributes was good, but continuously layering a single attribute to amplify its power also seemed effective. Leonard, while collecting the three swords, reflected on this.

Crack.

The manticore's skull, struck twice by the White Tiger Techniques, shattered into pieces.

It was a formidable opponent. If he hadn't anticipated the betrayal and counterattacked, the fight would have been a fierce, bloody battle lasting several minutes to several dozen minutes. Having used the [Stone of Petrification] and expended significant mana in the battle with the Shadow Knights, he had won more easily.

Five brilliant spirit stones crystallized.

While the number of spirit stones didn't necessarily reflect the monster's strength, the manticore yielded five times more than a second-stage manticore.

It wasn't just a comparison to a 10th-rank Outer Force.

If the roles were reversed, Leonard would have found it difficult to escape such a predicament.

"Well, that's enough for today."

He had defeated five Shadow Knights and practiced using two or three swords in the fight with the manticore. The achievements of a single day were unbelievable.

Reaching out for the spirit stones.

With a bit more, he could break through to the 4th-rank Outer Force. Using the Two Swords and Three Swords techniques with 90 years of inner power was challenging. Leonard, feeling the need to increase his inner power, was reviewing his future growth plan.

Flash!

The signal device around his neck flashed once.

Why?

Leonard felt the scythe of death sweeping down his spine.

'No way!'

Faster than his thoughts, he removed the signal device and threw it down the cliff, then leaped away.

Time seemed to stretch infinitely. The feeling of death approaching became increasingly clear.

Leonard vanished from the battlefield strewn with corpses.

Roar——.

A shadow fell from the sky just seconds later.

Falling from hundreds of meters, the figure's steps were light, and the ground didn't even stir when it landed.

A Shadow Knight.

Under the chestnut hair, the eyes were bloodshot, and the pupils rapidly scanned the chaotic battlefield, examining the fallen bodies.

"...I was too late. If I had hurried a bit more, I could have brought you all to the great cause."

The fifth Shadow, the Sword Master who had infiltrated Galapagos, looked down at his subordinates' bodies with bloodshot eyes.

A body with a shattered head from the manticore's tail.

A body burned to death by cursed fire.

A body with a pierced abdomen and crushed heart.

And.

"This wound...wasn't from the manticore."

The cross-sections of the decapitated bodies were too clean.

Clearly cut by a sword.

The Sword Master, who couldn't miss such a mark, recognized it immediately.

"Demons of Cardenas?"

The sword techniques, not found in the Kingdom of Crusis, suggested research to counter non-human entities.

The fifth Shadow turned to the manticore's body.

More precisely, the steam rising from it.

The blood was still warm.

It had been alive just a few minutes ago.

"He sensed my approach and fled. I must kill him."

The aura of a Transcendent Realm powerhouse covered several kilometers. Sensing the signal device's recent activation, the Sword Master took flight again, heading in that direction.

The Shadow Knight, breaking the sound barrier with a single step, swiftly disappeared from the clearing.