I Obtained Sword God Level Talent

72 – 072. The Ismael Subjugation Battle (10)

A demon descended to earth.

The symbol of the Fallen, Ismael, scanned the area before him with a gaze of intrigue.

“Strange. What do you gain from resisting so?”

“Kuh…!”

Gasping for breath, Geum Ha-rin bit her lip.

Standing before an enemy she could not dare to oppose, she lowered her head weakly.

‘I am… not a genius.’

“Cough! Cough! Young Master… Run!”

“……!”

Geum Ha-rin turned her trembling gaze. There, stood a sword demon drenched in blood.

‘A power that even a demon martial artist cannot resist… How the hell am I supposed to escape!’

A pinnacle demon, or a grandmaster. A man from the 8th rank of the Western Continent, a transcedent in his twilight years, was dying.

*Crunch!*

Geum Ha-rin gritted her teeth and fiercely clawed at the dirt ground. She rose, fueled by her rage. From the start, there were no options. Die here, or defeat the enemy. Those were the only two paths…

“How strange.”

As Geum Ha-rin ignited her final spark, Ishmael, with a bored expression, scanned his surroundings and spoke.

“I don’t see him. The master of ＜Divinity＞. The one who flaunted that audacious blessing.”

“……!”

In an instant, Geum Ha-rin’s heart dropped.

She, too, knew who this ‘master of Divinity’ he spoke of was.

“He… is gone now.”

“Gone? Vanished within this barrier? That is impossible.”

Ishmael let out a snort and began to walk. His leisurely stride passed the fallen sword demon and Geum Ha-rin, then strolled through the corpses of the already fallen territorial soldiers.

“Stop…!”

Geum Ha-rin, her body trembling, desperately cried out as she tried to rise.

It was obvious what his objective was.

…Frey. The enemy was targeting Frey.

From Geum Ha-rin’s perspective, it was an action she herself didn’t understand. After all, she and Frey, they were a relationship that had been irrevocably flawed from the start.

But.

Why? Geum Ha-rin knew. She knew she couldn’t let that monster into the city.

“Give… me orders?”

*Swish*, Ishmael’s body turned, and his eyes blazed with blue flames.

“……!”

It was not an illusion or a mistake. Indeed, the monster in front of her had fire surging in his eyes.

“Die. The amusement is over. I let you play, and you don’t know your place.”

*Swoosh.*

Ismael slowly raised his hand.

*Whirring!*

A blue, unknown force, mirroring his hair and eyes, began to swell and fill his palm.

‘I’m, going to die.’

Geum Ha-rin knew, in this very moment, that this was the end of her short and intense life.

*Whirrrr–!*

She couldn’t resist. She couldn’t overcome it. Like a basic law of the world, death steadily approached her.

“Don’t be too sad. Soon, others will join you on the path to the underworld.”

The devil’s whisper swept through the battlefield as,

*KWA-GWA-GWA-GWANG────!!!*

An enormous pressure shook the earth. And simultaneously, a blinding light struck down into the city.

*Flash—!*

*Flash—!*

*Flash—!*

Three strikes of lightning.

As if the heavens were reacting to the current situation, a wondrous natural phenomenon engulfed the space.

“What is this…?”

Ismael’s face, his brow furrowed, changed from moment to moment.

After the predicted time had passed, he had come to the city, brimming with composure.

But now, as if sensing something amiss, his distorted expression testified to the situation rapidly turning urgent.

“Heh, heheheh…”

*Thump!*

Geum Ha-rin, who had struggled to sit up before collapsing again, burst into a vacant laugh.

Just as Ismael had sensed ‘something’, she, too, had realized a certain truth.

Those lightning strikes weren’t just a common natural phenomenon.

The area covered by the barrier was close to a river. But remembering that not a single breeze, nor rain, nor even dew had occurred here, it was easy enough to anticipate.

*Whooosh───!*

At the same time, a vast wind spread from the city’s center.

The wind was filled with faint ‘mana’. The overflowing energy signified that the source of this phenomenon was not simply a coincidence.

‘It’s… warm…?’

Geum Ha-rin stared at the city’s outer walls with dazed eyes. As she felt it, the wind spreading out from the city center was full of warm air.

“This is…!!!”

Ismael, who had attacked the city, seemed shocked, his mouth gaping open as he quickly turned his head away.

“Ah…”

“In the end, they’ve done it.”

Geum Ha-rin and the Sword Demon, collapsed on the ground, their shoulders trembled.

In a situation not even worth a single coin, a singular hope.

That hope stretches itself. Like a flame blooming in the darkness, the final weapon to reverse this situation begins its activation…!

“Cough! Cough! Priests…release the barrier…!”

Bishop Dubong, who had already been defeated by Ismael’s gesture, cried out with all his might.

At the Bishop’s command, the priests immediately sprang into action. Without hesitation, they immediately clasped their hands and began reciting the prayer.

“Oh merciful avatar of war…”

“Oh beacon of the living…”

“…please, stop it.”

Whooosh…!

The barrier that had been protecting the city from the demon’s clutches grows faint. And then, in a fleeting moment, the barrier disappears without a trace.

And.

KWA-AA-AA-AA────!!!

A powerful light erupted from the city.

The pure white, dazzling light illuminated the sky for a good while.

Throb-throb!

But the dispersion of that light did not last long.

The light fades. But as the light was filling the sky, a thick darkness began to fill it instead.

“Indeed, ＜Black Sword＞… that child has no choice but to be with us in the end.”

The Sword Demon, a trickle of blood running down his lip, smiled faintly.

Look at that sight.

Isn’t it a scene remarkably similar to someone from the Demonic Cult, the Supreme of Demons?

“What kind of absurd…!”

Gone was any trace of the composure Ismael had shown earlier.

His body trembling, he stared blankly at the city.

It comes.

It draws near.

The very source of that light and darkness, the one who isn’t here… a being wreathed in an absurd number of blessings, including the ＜Divine＞, was gazing at him from beyond the city walls.

“How dare a mere mortal…!”

Fwooosh───!

An intangible force exploded from Ismael’s entire being. It was as if he was saying, come if you dare, his fighting spirit blazing to life at last.

“Are you taking the form of a false god──!!!”

Ismael roared, low and guttural.

* * *

A sensation like my head turning to dust jolts me awake.

“……”

An unfamiliar ceiling… no, a gaping hole in the ceiling, the sky above. I’m overwhelmed by an intense feeling of wrongness as I come to.

Throb! Throb!

First, the headache. My head feels like it’s about to shatter. And then my arms and legs, my body, my fingers—they all ache.

The pain doesn’t stop there. Even parts of my body devoid of nerves, like my hair and fingernails, seem to be screaming in agony.

“But… it doesn’t feel bad.”

I spread my palm wide, muttering with unfocused eyes.

The shadow-cloaked being… presumably a ‘god,’ after our talk, an unknown power flooded my whole body.

“……”

Catching my breath, I finally reached for my sword.

And then.

Kwahhhng!

I blasted through the ruined building, shattering it, and soared into the air.

In an instant, my gaze was tens of meters above, the situation in front of the city clearly visible.

‘It wasn’t an illusion.’

The scene I’d seen in the darkness, it wasn’t a dream or a hallucination. Truly, I’d been adrift in that darkness for a fortnight. The proof of that lay in the fallen, bleeding bodies of Geum Harin, the Sword Demon, the priests, and the territory soldiers.

“……”

Clench!

Fwang!

Gripping the scabbard tightly, I kicked off the empty air. I didn’t understand it with my head, but my instincts understood the principle.

Form mana in the空. And… kick off with all my might from that mana foothold!

*SWIIIShhh!*

An overwhelming sense of speed instantly blurred my vision.

And.

*KWA-BOOM!*

I reached the city gate in a matter of seconds.

*Pitter-patter*, a thick cloud of scattered dirt obscured my view.

“…Ishmael.”

“You, you b*stard…!!”

As the dust gradually settled, I could finally see the enemy clearly with my own eyes.

Ishmael, the Glutton. But strangely, this devilish species hadn’t manifested with the power of ＜Gluttony＞, but with some grotesquely high level of combat power.

“You crazy son of a b*tch──!!!! How dare you house a divine spirit within your body? Do you even realize the consequences of what you’ve done?!”

“……”

What?

I shot a bewildered look at him.

I expected him to dive straight into battle, but Ishmael just unleashed a furious roar filled with resentment.

“…A divine spirit?”

“That’s right! Now that you’ve awakened the power of the outside world, the beings in the heavens will notice you!”

My mind raced.

Outside, the outer world. Just where the hell was he talking about?

Outside the world? Outer space, or outside this ＜Silvering＞ world?

“I, I have to hurry…! I’ll kill you before ‘they’ arrive, and then escape from the Middle Realm──!”

*Wooo-oosh!*

A dizzying vortex of mana started swirling around Ishmael.

*Whoo-ooshh──!!*

‘He’s going all-out from the start?’

There were still so many things I wanted to ask. But the enemy didn’t seem to have any intention of talking. The compressed flow he was drawing, the aura I felt from it, it was far from ordinary.

“Die…!!”

*Whoosh!*

What he’d instantaneously created was a single orb.

A maelstrom of energies, it was filled with an ineffable gloom.

Mana.

Magia.

Divine power.

KWaaahhh────!!!

An impossible mingling, a compressed sphere of it unleashed a torrent of light, engulfing me.

*Thwack!*

Instantly dropping low, I thought.

Something was off. Something was definitely off. For some reason, I could see another ‘light’ within that cascade of light.

Yes, it was much like the way the rifts in so many of my previous enemies had transformed into light.

“───.”

*Srrrrrk!*

Power to the lower body.

Speed to the arms.

Edge to the sword tip.

*Clink!*

Head cold.

Heart hot.

Weight to the blade.

And then, a grand swing…

I cut.

*Crrraaackkk…!*

The light that was exploding upon me was sliced in two.