Chapter 80

Chapter 80. Emperor's Authority (2)

<.......>

Most unnaturally.

The Voice of the World stopped mid-sentence.

As if nothing had happened, silence descended.

It was the first time this had ever occurred since the world changed.

'The Voice of the World just cut itself off?'

A sudden flash of realization.

I'd been so consumed by the thought of meeting my sword in person that I'd forgotten a fundamental truth.

My swords, you see.

'They stood at the pinnacle, transcending worlds and dimensions.'

No matter that she'd taken the form of a small child—her essence hadn't changed.

"Do not interrupt Our musings."

At Iris's words, the world chose perfect silence.

Having spoken, she kept stealing glances at me.

I stared right back at her.

'Small.'

Iris sat upon the towering crimson throne, kicking her feet.

Her small feet swung back and forth in the air.

She narrowed her eyes and stretched her legs as if trying to reach the floor, but they never touched.

She snuck a peek at me, then casually produced a demon and rested her feet on top of it.

Incredibly cute.

But—.

GULP.

Others apparently didn't share that impression.

Someone swallowed hard amid the tension.

[Muratan's Failure 122—A Sword Forged by Binding the Entire Imperial Transcendent Knight Order.]

Knights stripped of all "self," faithful only to orders.

Beings built to obey without emotion, merely imitating human form.

They had felt instinctive terror.

Only then did I recall another fact about Iris.

'Her temper was something else.'

Iris was headstrong enough to tell the Voice of the World to shut up.

Moreover, she'd been an absolute sovereign who communicated only with her "sword."

Our relationship was as good as it could be, but beyond that, she'd built no connections whatsoever.

'She was basically an uncommunicable catastrophe over there?'

Everyone who'd ever demanded dialogue with her became demon food. The continental rulers became demon food. The invading demons became demon food.

'I'd originally planned to hold a proper enthronement ceremony, but......'

The Republic of Korea still needed time to adjust to her.

I decided to keep the ceremony idea to myself for now.

"Oh!"

Iris, who'd been watching me, shifted her gaze.

A sly smile played at her lips—she'd clearly thought of something amusing.

"Are you knights who serve Us?"

The knights flanking her stamped the ground with a resounding 'STOMP!' and offered her the same sword salute they'd given me.

Iris let out a gleeful "Haha!" then turned her eyes to me.

"Sword Master, this maiden shall show you something entertaining."

Indeed.

Iris's temper was no joke, and her sanity was questionable.

I'd forgotten that.

The crimson little empress issued her command.

"Kill one another."

Before the words had fully left her mouth, the imperial knights drew their swords.

They were swords that looked like people.

Genuine swords Muratan had forged to be faithful to commands.

The instant the order was given, the knights on either side of Iris drew their blades and began attacking each other.

I was still maintaining my Transcended cognition, so every detail was vividly clear.

'Strong.'

The sword forged by binding the empire's mightiest Knight Order was truly formidable.

Every one of them moved in a blur of afterimages, each possessing power rivaling Earth's Transcendents.

Pit three of them together and they'd demolish the Patriot's Cheok Jun-gyeong.

"The Commander and the Instructor. You two are quite serviceable."

Among them, two stood out above all—the Imperial Transcendent Knight Commander and the Transcendent Knight Instructor.

Either one alone could overpower Cheok Jun-gyeong in single combat.

Watching all of it, a question naturally arose.

'Just how much worse is the world going to get?'

In a world where a godlike being like Jesus had already manifested, I'd been given this much power.

And I'd gain strength beyond imagination going forward.

What scale of enemy would we face?

Could humanity survive within that?

Those were my thoughts.

SQUELCH—.

The duel had ended before I knew it.

Muratan's swords were forged in perfect symmetry and balance.

The result was mutual annihilation.

Even the Commander and Instructor had perished, each impaling the other's throat.

"Sword Master, these are truly retainers loyal to this maiden."

Iris smiled at the knights' corpses.

One hundred and two bodies.

Come to think of it, she'd done this sort of thing in Raise a Sword too.

"Kill one another. The last one standing shall be spared."

Holy knights from some order that had declared a crusade against Iris personally.

Surrounded by demons, they'd slaughtered each other.

"Haha! Oh dear, Our demons aren't being very obedient."

The last survivor had become demon food.

A similar entertainment had been recreated here.

Could I really let her loose on Earth?

I mulled it over briefly.

'That's for the world to adjust to.'

Of course I could.

Now that my sword could truly exist here, no other option existed for me.

Iris would never do anything to harm me.

CRACK—.

Besides, the "swords" Muratan had forged were unkillable tools.

The steel that was human pulsed.

The one hundred and two dead knights reconnected in unnatural fashion.

"Receive Our blood."

So long as there was fuel for restoration, beings Muratan had forged as swords could always return to their original state.

"Auto-restoration" was apparently the latest trend in dwarven armaments.

DRIP—.

Blood droplets falling from the Imperial Palace's skylight soaked the knights.

And so the one hundred and two knights were reborn.

Golden armor stained crimson.

The longsword blades in their hands took on a violet hue.

Regaining human form, the crimson-dyed knights fell into formation on either side of Iris.

"You are now truly retainers of Us."

Iris rejoiced at having obtained human-form retainers for the first time, rather than demons.

Seeing my sword taking to Earth warmed my heart.

If only the warmth had been all there was.......

RUMBLE——.

A thunderous sound erupted from somewhere.

We stood in the tallest structure in the world—the Imperial Citadel.

Following the sound, my gaze landed on China's Great Wall.

A section of the barrier dividing nations scattered like a mirage.

From within emerged beings radiating ominous energy.

***

TREMBLE!!!!

The tiny sprout planted in the glass garden before the Imperial Citadel shuddered violently.

'Eek!!!'

The World Tree felt the aura of the abominable demons that had devoured it across an eternity.

More precisely, the aura of the madwoman who claimed those demons as her subjects.

She was a being that should never exist in this world.

'H-how does she have a physical body?'

The World Tree was devastated.

The underground was sealed. The sky was blocked by the Emperor's Authority.

Still, as a World Tree that could absorb the surrounding nourishment, it had believed escape was possible if it just kept growing.

Perhaps by negotiating with that "system" thing.

But.......

'I-I said I want to live!'

The Imperial Palace was drenched in red.

The Emperor's Authority blanketing the sky grew even more ferocious, matching the current empress's temperament.

This life was the last one.

After an eternity of being hunted, the World Tree harbored no naive optimism like "I'll come back if I die."

In fact, dying and reviving was worse.

'The deaths only get more horrible.'

And now even that was no longer possible.

One look and it knew.

'This really is the last......'

One wrong move and it was over.

Eternal annihilation.

The only remaining hope was a half-elf who might follow the phytoncide scent.

Half or not, it was still her child, so she'd surely come eventually.......

'When is she coming?!'

No sign of her.

A full-blooded elf would have arrived within an hour.

Yet two days had already passed.

Being a half-elf—only half—she apparently couldn't carry out Mother World Tree's will immediately.

'How lonely.'

The suffocating demons surrounding her were bad enough, but now the demons' master had appeared in the towering palace above.

Just as the World Tree was sinking into despair.

KRRRRUMBLE——.

A distant wall partially collapsed.

Beyond it appeared demon worshippers radiating pitch-black energy.

The World Tree counted the "nourishment."

'A million?'

The scale was entirely different.

An overwhelming number never seen in the Raise a Sword world.

A million demon worshippers had gathered.

Where that many gathered, the "demon" they served was sure to follow.

The World Tree felt it.

———Oh, a familiar presence.

The distant whisper of a demon's temptation.

The instant they "recognized" each other, the demon saw the World Tree and the World Tree saw the demon.

The demon made an offer.

———Come to our side.

Once, the World Tree had succumbed to such temptations countless times.

And what had happened?

'I was the first to die.'

The corrupted World Tree had killed the swords, but across repeating worlds, it had lived an even harsher existence.

The swords had always hunted the World Tree first.

No.

Mustn't fall for it.

Whether they were demons or humans didn't matter to the World Tree.

They had no idea what kind of terrifying being lurked in this palace.

The demon asked again.

———Would you rather stay trapped and die?

The World Tree kept silent.

Because from the towering citadel above, a bright voice rang out.

And that voice terrified the World Tree to its very core.

"Sword Master!!! Our food has come in droves."

***

Twelve aircraft carriers banked hard in an emergency turn.

Transcendent reactors engaged as the carriers moved.

At the speed of light, just as the Patriot had imagined.

——Emergency situation.

——Emergency situation.

After transmitting an emergency signal to the government, the carriers arrived in North Korea at lightspeed.

The first thing visible was the towering Imperial Citadel.

'Sword Master Shin Si-woo, what kind of bizarre ability is that?'

He draws a sword and builds a castle.

No matter how he thought about it, it made no sense.

'At least my carriers have a logical connection.'

Yi Sun-sin narrowed his eyes at the overwhelming citadel.

Si-woo's abilities were strange.

No coherent logic, and the things he called "swords" performed outlandish feats—miracles akin to Jesus's, unleashed haphazardly.

'What is that?'

Most puzzling was the unidentified crimson light that had suddenly appeared within the citadel.

Until the citadel's completion, the carrier's radar had functioned perfectly. But ever since an unknown "someone" appeared, the radar had gone haywire.

Nothing but red across the board.

He'd assumed it was broken, until the radar's northern sector detected a pitch-black energy signature.

The radar wasn't broken.

'All that red is......'

It meant a being that vastly exceeded the radar's detection range had appeared in Si-woo's Imperial Palace.

Probably one of the things he called "swords."

'More importantly, I never expected the Great Wall to crumble.'

Moving every carrier in response to the Chinese anomaly had been essentially a reflex action.

Yi Sun-sin, too, was a Constellation who cherished the Republic of Korea—a being forged of patriotism.

The Chinese aggression the Patriot had warned about so insistently was genuinely dangerous.

But—.

"Not quite...... a crisis."

Yi Sun-sin positioned the carriers well away from the Imperial Palace.

He had a feeling that until the Patriot and King Sejong appeared, getting entangled with that palace would be unwise.

-This is Yulgok Yi I. Chinese anomaly confirmed. Do you need support?

Yulgok Yi I's voice came through the carrier's comms.

Yi Sun-sin gazed at the wave surging from China.

'The Great Wall......'

A section of the Great Wall that had erupted along North Korea's border just days ago had scattered like a mirage.

Through the gap, the shadow of a colossal humanoid figure was visible, and below it, humans arrayed like toy soldiers in staggering numbers.

By all appearances, an invading army.

And.......

[One Million.]

The scale detected by the carrier's radar was staggering.

Last time it had been around three hundred thousand. This time, more than triple—one million.

That wasn't all.

'Every last one of them has Fallen.'

The Chinese forces Yi Sun-sin could see were vastly different from Ling Ling's unit last time.

Every one of the million humans had inverted eyes, and the colossal being leading them had inverted eyes as well.

Even after seeing all of that, Yi Sun-sin moved the carriers slightly farther from the Imperial Palace.

'That is more dangerous.'

The pinnacle of the Imperial Palace.

The window of the room called the audience chamber.

A crimson girl sat at the windowsill, kicking her feet, gazing toward China.

Yi Sun-sin felt the girl's essence.

[Demonic.]

Danger readings that filled the radar to capacity.

And an eerie energy that instilled fear from sight alone.

'Patriot, hurry back.'

The Patriot was ignorant but never lied.

"The Ching are lunatics who deal in the hundreds of millions!"

That had been true.

They really did casually field hundreds of thousands and millions.

"King Sejong the Great is a real god who can't even be compared to the likes of Jesus!!!"

That, too, had to be true.

It had to be.

If it wasn't.......

'Si-woo's unchecked dominance cannot be stopped.'

Yi Sun-sin saw it.

The girl sitting in Pyongyang's window flicked her finger.

The crimson knights in the citadel vanished at the speed of light and arrived before the Chinese forces in an instant.

And the girl at the window—.

"What an insolent giant, daring to look down upon Us."

Toward the enormous inverted-eyed being.

The being from Chinese mythology that had emerged from within.

She flicked her crimson greatsword.

The unnaturally massive blade looked identical to the one Si-woo had held when summoning demons.

The moment she flicked it.

SPLATTER———!!!

The colossal being, easily several hundred meters tall.

Was reduced to a handful of blood.