434 - The Gathering of the Strong #3

━I am Achilles, warrior of Pthia, the Lament of Widows. Master of all weapons, a cursed and fallen wraith. Little Pluto, I challenge you.

Screeeech-.

Achilles gripped his sword with both hands, lowering his stance.

━Son of the Underworld, you are more than enough of a worthy opponent-.

Just as I thought he was about to lunge forward with his sword, like a charging bull's horns-.

Fsssh-.

Before I knew it, he was gone without a trace.

However, my senses, honed by countless battles, sent a vibration through my jaw, making me instinctively pull my head back.

Screeeech-!

At that moment, I saw a long blade tear through the air, arcing upwards from below my navel to above my jaw.

Achilles had approached to just under my chin and swung his sword.

━If even I, Achilles, cannot overcome you, then all that awaits you is death, Hassan!

Screeeech-!

The longsword, which had been angled upwards, was now coming down diagonally towards my body. A clean, consecutive strike.

"Guh-!"

Snapping out of my surprise at the unexpected ambush, I quickly rolled away, creating distance.

Swish-.

Thanks to that, Achilles' sword drew a lightning-fast arc through the air. A movement focused solely on "cutting," clean and without any wasted motion.

If that had hit me, even I would have sustained a fatal wound from my left shoulder to my right flank.

If I'd been unlucky, my body would have been cleaved in two.

━You dodged that.

"Are you trying to kill me, you son of a bitch?"

━Indeed. I do not draw my weapon unless I intend to kill. Now that I have drawn it, one of us must die. You and I.

"Hmph..."

━If you die here, you can go to the underworld you so desire. Then you will know how foolish your thoughts were-.

Whoosh-.

I felt the intense killing intent of the skeletal Death Knight. It felt like being showered with heavily carbonated soda.

He was fucking serious.

When was the last time I felt such intense killing intent?

I was momentarily flustered, but the chilling killing intent piercing my skin actually calmed my mind.

"Hoo-."

I adjusted my stance, taking a deep breath.

━Aren't you drawing your weapon? I'll give you time.

Achilles taunted me. But I knew all too well that I wouldn't even have time to draw the club on my back.

The moment I reached for my back, his sword would pierce my neck or cleave my torso in two.

Flinch-.

Screee-.

Indeed, every time I moved or breathed, Achilles' blade shifted slightly.

He was waiting for me to make a move, to show an opening, and then he would strike without mercy.

That damn cowardly skeleton.

He must have lost his conscience along with his flesh and bones. Maybe he was cowardly because he lacked hair follicles too.

But it was okay.

A seasoned warrior's body is a weapon in itself.

I had learned that painfully from Hippolyte, Calidour, and this man before me, Achilles.

I would face him with my bare hands.

And if I complained about his cowardice here, Achilles would be right: I wouldn't even dream of challenging the underworld, a collection of all absurdities.

"...."

....

And so, unarmed, I faced Achilles, who held a greatsword, in a tense standoff.

Neither of us moved, maintaining a taut tension as we searched for each other's openings.

I recalled Hippolyte and Calidour explaining that "the fights of the strong are surprisingly static and quiet."

They said most fights don't last long and can end anticlimactically.

I didn't quite understand it then, but I understood it perfectly now.

It was a battle of wits, where you had to find your opponent's opening without creating one yourself.

Facing an opponent who wanted to kill me, maintaining this tension felt like it was draining my life force.

My stomach churned.

But I had no time to dwell on such discomfort.

Fwoosh-.

At that moment, Achilles leaped and his sword instantly cleaved me in two from the crown of my head to my groin.

"Ugh-!"

Startled, I quickly dodged to the side.

Now I realized that what I had just seen wasn't Achilles' real attack, but some kind of hallucination.

What the hell?

I was bewildered.

Achilles, who I thought had attacked me, was standing still, and my body, which I thought had been cut, was unharmed.

As I tried to make sense of what was happening, Achilles, still holding his sword, spoke.

━To fall for such a crude display of killing intent. This must be your first sparring match with a strong opponent, isn't it?

"Killing intent...?"

━It's a projection of spirit. You use your muscles, bones, and posture to convey the intent of your attack beforehand, letting the opponent know what you're going to do.

"Ah-."

━Only those who have reached a certain level can engage in this kind of probing. Hassan, your eyes and ears are extraordinary. That's why such illusions are even more effective.

Swoosh, swoosh-.

Screeeech-.

Achilles' sword strikes continued to rain down, as if to cut me down from all directions.

Of course, they weren't real swords, but illusions my mind had conjured.

In other words, my insight, which had intensified after realizing my divinity and breaking through level 40, was imagining Achilles' movements and replaying them as images.

It was like seeing a lemon and your brain automatically making your mouth water.

Slash, slash-.

The problem was that these illusory attacks were actually inflicting damage on me.

I felt my forearm, cut by Achilles' illusion, split open and bleed, and shallow cuts appeared on my face and neck.

Slaaash-.

A cut on my forehead caused blood to flow into my eyes, obscuring my vision, but I couldn't afford to show any weakness.

This is troublesome.

It wasn't fatal, but this was a completely one-sided exchange.

How could I be wounded by an illusion? It made me recall a story my dual core had told me.

A torturer supposedly locked a blindfolded prisoner in a room with air conditioning and told him he was in a freezing cold room.

The prisoner, believing he was in the extreme cold, developed severe hypothermia.

I wasn't sure, but apparently, the brain does that.

Was this something similar?

My left and right brain hemispheres, now possessing clear functionality after escaping the blessing of chaos-.

Due to their excessive performance, they were creating invisible illusions and causing my body to sustain wounds as if I had actually been cut.

Damn it, being too smart is also a problem.

In any case, if we continued to exchange spirit projections like this, my body would be torn to shreds by the illusions I myself created.

Therefore, I decided I had to end this probing match and this unwelcome situation quickly.

Also, Achilles' greatsword had been emitting a strange aura, a low hum, for a while now, and it made me uneasy.

I had a feeling that if we dragged this out, something bad would happen.

Swoosh-.

"Tch-!"

I quickly loosened the blood flow in my body and, with my agility of 15, charged at Achilles with blinding speed.

The realm of superhuman agility made it seem less like I was speeding up and more like everything around me was slowing down.

━Good intuition. It was almost complete-.

However, even within that slowed time, Achilles followed my movement and swung his sword down.

That's how I knew his agility was at least 14.

Swish-.

━Dodge-. If you don't want to die.

In the slowed accelerated world, Achilles' sword cut through the air in a clean arc from left to right. Simultaneously, a crescent-shaped silver slash flew from the tip of his sword.

This was not an illusion or imagination, but a materialized killing intent itself.

Screeeeeech-.

Its size was several times mine, and it seemed to tear through the abyssal darkness.

CRASH-!

The stone walls of the cliff that were hit by it were ground away like paper, which was chilling.

This was a slash of a magnitude and level that even Hippolyte, a swordswoman, had never shown.

If I took it head-on, even I wouldn't be unharmed.

Don't take it, dodge it!

So, I raised my fist with all my might and slammed it onto the ground.

"Earth Wall-!"

BOOM-.

A deep trench was created, and the surrounding visibility dropped sharply. It was an hastily dug artificial trench.

Thanks to that, I was able to lower my head and avoid the crescent-shaped sword energy without being cleaved.

I almost got screwed.

A story I vaguely heard during Hippolyte's training came to mind.

━Finishing moves. Ultimate skills. Death blows. These techniques are powerful, but they are also the most vulnerable moments to counter-attack. Because they create openings.

Indeed.

Hippolyte was right.

There's no better time to dive in than when your opponent misses their ultimate move.

So, I coiled my body like a frog and sprang towards Achilles.

It was a great stroke of luck that I could use my lowered stance as a spring-like propulsion.

That transcendent speed allowed me to penetrate Achilles' guard as he was trying to regain his stance after unleashing his sword strike.

And finally, my fist, imbued with all my soul, was able to deliver a powerful uppercut to his jaw.

━Too simple-!

Of course, Achilles' skill wasn't so sloppy as to allow such an attack.

Fwoosh-!

Strength 16.

My punch, infused with all my strength, carried a powerful aftershock, just like the sword energy Achilles had unleashed.

And my level was far higher than back then!

"Hassan, God-Slaying Fist-!"

The uppercut I threw with all my might became a sharp and merciless gale, sweeping through the surroundings and ascending like the sword energy Achilles had unleashed.

Gooooo-.

━What, how-!

Crack, crack-.

The shockwave from the impact cracked Achilles' armor. He plunged his sword into the ground to withstand it.

━Kuh-.

He knelt on one knee on the ground, gathering his remaining life force as if to extinguish it.

━As expected, it's unreasonable. The power of a god-.

"But you spared me, didn't you? You had plenty of opportunities to cut off my head."

I recalled the moments Achilles had shown me illusions. If any of them had been real, I would have been unable to defend myself.

But he hadn't.

So, I thought this might have been a test.

"So, did I pass the test? Were you testing whether I could form an expeditionary force to the underworld?"

━Half right. But half of it, I truly intended to kill you. However, you survived. As you said, you passed the test. You are now permitted to graduate from the Heroic Academy of Achilles.

"Graduate?"

━You are now a true hero. You are as different from when I first saw you as a plain and a mountain.

"...."

Receiving praise didn't feel bad at all.

Soon, with a clatter-, the skeletal figure, with its cracked and broken body, rose and went into a hut, rummaging through something.

━Here it is. As a token of your graduation, I will give you this.

And what he held out to me was a golden necklace.

I knew its shape well, having seen it dangling from Hippolyte's neck many times.

"The symbol of Gold Tier-."

━No, this is different from what guilds give out. I, Achilles, am one of the first disciples of Chiron, the centaur. This is what I received from him as a token of graduating from the first class.

"Oh-."

━With the token of the first class, you will be well-received by the other juniors if you show it to them.

I had heard a lot about Chiron, the centaur, and his academy.

In simple terms, it was like a teacher and an academy.

Chiron nurtured the budding seeds of heroes.

The reason adventurers started wearing necklaces was because he gave golden necklaces to his academy graduates.

So, Achilles was his disciple.

This was a conferment ceremony, signifying true graduation.

I felt a sense of accomplishment, as if I had been recognized as a man by this formidable warrior.

"So, will you accompany me to the underworld?"

━No, I cannot. I am forbidden from going to the underworld. That is why I wander this mortal realm as a mere skeleton.

...What, so I failed to recruit Achilles after all?

Then, a question that had been lingering in my mind for a long time, one I hadn't dared to ask, surfaced.

But since I had graduated from the academy, I figured I could ask at least one question.

"I've always wondered, why did you become a Death Knight?"

....

Achilles paused, swallowing his words.

A flicker of anguish and contemplation crossed his glowing eyes before he slowly opened his mouth.

━I desecrated a corpse. Because of that, I incurred Pluto's wrath and am paying the price. For years, or perhaps decades, I cannot rest in the underworld. I am forbidden even from approaching it.

Cannot rest-.

I could feel the weight of his exhaustion in those words.

It was heavier than the ultimate sword energy he had unleashed, so heavy that I couldn't speak any further.

A life lived as an undead.

A life where one cannot feel warmth or smell, where everything is tinged with a faint grayness. The burden of such a man.

Of course, it would be heavy.

I said.

"If I succeed in my expedition to the underworld later, I will find a way for you to retire and rest there."

━Thank you for that. Do you really intend to go?

"Yes."

━Indeed. That must be your destiny. Hassan, I truly wish I could join a man like you, but it cannot be helped.

"Yes, well, if circumstances don't allow, they don't allow."

━Instead, I will be the tip of your spear in the war that is to come.

"War?"

What war?

Sluuurp-.

Achilles, the skeletal knight, made a sniffing sound in the air.

━Hassan, I smell war on you. Since becoming this way, it's the only scent I can detect. The smell of blood and slaughter, of fear and screams, and of all kinds of chaos. A great war is coming soon.

MnZBMElkRjFKc3ZCR0RiWklQRlA5WlZINzRaZThhUzZ1cnMyS01IbEgxWSthYlc5UWRKQ2ZkRTUwaFo3c1JOcQ

"War..."

━That's why I asked where you were heading. In any case, in that war, I will be the first to charge and sever the head of the most troublesome enemy. I swear on the River Styx.

And so, my conversation with Achilles ended.

With lingering doubts and the golden necklace, the token of the first class graduation, in my hand, I returned to Sodomora.

I saw a large crowd gathered in the center of the city, murmuring.

Why were so many people gathered here? Thinking they might be there to welcome me, I pushed through the crowd.

━Ah, move over, don't push.

━Don't cut in line-.

Were they pushing me away instead?

What was going on to cause such a commotion?

So, I continued to push my way through the crowd until I finally reached the center, the eye of the storm.

━I am a royal of the region of Arcadia, a slayer of monsters who hunted the Calydonian Boar-! A great warrior of the goddess Diana, a lioness who tears apart her enemies-!

There stood a woman.

━Hassan, the scoundrel of Sodomora who dared to summon an expedition with such a fraudulent letter, come out at once and accept my challenge, Atalanta-!